The world was screaming.
Not through sound, but through sensation a deep, primal rumble beneath the skin, as if reality itself had become sentient and was trying to shake loose the truth buried beneath centuries of deception.
Cambria clutched the locket in her bloodied palm, the cracked photograph still glowing faintly with a golden light that pulsed like a heartbeat. Her own. Or the other one's.
Lucien was still on his knees, whispering fragments of warnings she couldn't yet piece together. The air around them had turned electric, each breath thick with the weight of memory foreign and yet familiar.
That voice still echoed inside her mind.
"Do you remember me now?"
She staggered backward, palm pressed to her temple as her vision blurred. In a blink, the throne room vanished, and she was standing in a field somewhere impossibly far, impossibly near. Wildflowers swayed in a golden breeze. A little girl laughed. Another followed her, darker-haired, quieter, but always close.
