Chapter 110: Chapter 110 – The Truth She Can’t Hide Anymore
Chapter 110 – The Truth She Can’t Hide Anymore
POV: Liora
For a long moment after Kael asked the question, I couldn’t answer.
Not because I didn’t know what to say.
Because I knew exactly what I needed to say.
That was the problem.
Some truths become easier to carry than to share.
For days I had been living with knowledge that felt impossible. At first, I had convinced myself I was protecting him by keeping it to myself. Then I told myself I needed more evidence. After that, I claimed I needed time to understand it better before dragging someone else into the chaos.
Those excuses had worked for a while.
Standing beside him now, they felt hollow.
Because the truth was simple.
I wasn’t protecting Kael.
I was afraid.
Afraid of what would happen once the words left my mouth.
Afraid of what they would change.
Afraid that speaking them aloud would somehow make everything more real than it already was.
The evening wind drifted across the balcony.
The fortress below glowed with scattered lights.
Somewhere in the distance, wolves laughed.
Someone closed a door.
Life continued.
Normal.
Ordinary.
Completely unaware that my world had become something else entirely.
I stared at the mountains for several seconds before finally speaking.
"I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure how."
My voice sounded quieter than I intended.
Kael didn’t respond.
Didn’t pressure me.
Didn’t demand answers.
He simply waited.
That alone made this harder.
If he had pushed, I could have argued.
If he had become angry, I could have defended myself.
Instead, he stood there and gave me room to tell the truth.
The silence forced honesty.
I took a slow breath.
"The memories aren’t what we thought."
Kael’s expression remained unreadable.
"What are they?"
I swallowed.
The answer still sounded absurd even after everything I had experienced.
"They’re not past lives."
A faint frown appeared between his brows.
I continued before he could speak.
"They aren’t random people connected to the bloodline either."
The confusion in his eyes deepened.
I couldn’t blame him.
A few months ago I would have thought the same thing.
The problem was that reality had stopped caring what sounded reasonable.
My hands tightened against the stone railing.
I hated this.
Not because I didn’t trust him.
Because I did.
I trusted him more than anyone.
That was exactly why this terrified me.
The people we trust have the greatest ability to be hurt by the truths we tell them.
"I met someone."
The statement drew his attention immediately.
A slight tension entered his posture.
Not jealousy.
Concern.
"What do you mean?"
I stared at the horizon.
Trying to find the right words.
Eventually I accepted there weren’t any.
There was only the truth.
"Another version of me."
The silence that followed felt enormous.
I could practically hear Kael attempting to make sense of what I had said.
Part of me wanted to laugh.
Another part wanted to run.
Neither option seemed productive.
When he finally spoke, his voice remained surprisingly calm.
"A memory?"
I shook my head slowly.
"Not exactly."
The memory surfaced vividly in my mind.
The silver chamber.
The woman with my face.
The exhaustion in her eyes.
The sadness in her smile.
The certainty in her voice.
My chest tightened.
Because I suddenly realized I missed her.
A woman I had met once.
A woman who was somehow me.
Nothing about that thought should have been possible.
Yet there it was.
"I don’t think she left the memory accidentally."
Kael studied me carefully.
"You think she was waiting for you."
The statement wasn’t a question.
I nodded.
"Yes."
The word felt heavy.
Everything felt heavy lately.
Kael looked away briefly.
Processing.
Analyzing.
Trying to fit impossible information into a world that still followed normal rules.
I almost envied him.
At least he still had the illusion that the rules existed.
I lost that weeks ago.
The silence stretched between us again.
Then I forced myself forward.
Because stopping now would only make things worse.
"She told me something."
The moment those words left my mouth, anxiety twisted in my stomach.
Not because I doubted the truth.
Because I knew what came next.
Kael’s attention sharpened instantly.
I could feel it.
The anticipation.
The concern.
The growing awareness that whatever I was about to say mattered.
A lot.
"What did she tell you?"
The question sounded simple.
The answer wasn’t.
I closed my eyes briefly.
Then opened them again.
No more avoiding it.
No more softening it.
No more pretending it might somehow sound better if I delayed long enough.
"It wasn’t the first attempt."
The words settled between us.
Neither of us moved.
Neither of us spoke.
The air itself seemed heavier.
I continued before courage abandoned me.
"There were others before me."
Kael remained silent.
I appreciated that.
Interruptions would have broken whatever fragile momentum I had managed to build.
"The memories aren’t different lives."
My throat tightened.
"They’re records."
I looked directly at him.
"For twenty-six previous attempts."
The words sounded worse aloud.
Much worse.
Inside my head they had become familiar.
Manageable.
Something I could analyze.
Something I could study.
Speaking them aloud transformed them into something else.
Something terrifying.
Because now another person could hear how impossible they sounded.
Kael’s expression didn’t change.
That worried me more than shock would have.
I pressed forward.
"There were twenty-six women before me."
The admission felt strangely personal.
As though I were betraying people who no longer existed.
"Every one of them tried to stop something."
My voice lowered.
"Every one of them failed."
The wind moved softly through the silence.
Kael still hadn’t spoken.
Still hadn’t interrupted.
Still hadn’t looked away.
I could feel my heartbeat accelerating.
Because I wasn’t finished.
Not yet.
And the next part was the hardest.
The part I had spent days avoiding.
The part that changed everything.
I turned fully toward him.
For several seconds I simply looked at him.
Tried to memorize the face I knew so well.
The face that appeared in memories that should have belonged to strangers.
The face that somehow existed across centuries.
Across failures.
Across repetition.
The realization hurt in ways I still couldn’t explain.
My chest tightened.
Not because I feared his reaction.
Because I feared understanding my own.
When I finally spoke again, my voice sounded almost steady.
Almost.
"The more memories I recover, the more patterns I see."
Kael’s jaw tightened slightly.
I noticed.
Of course I noticed.
I noticed everything lately.
"The people change."
I swallowed.
"The details change."
The bond stirred faintly between us.
A strange ache accompanied it.
"The outcomes change."
My voice dropped further.
"But some things stay the same."
Understanding flickered briefly in his eyes.
Not full understanding.
The beginning of it.
The dangerous beginning.
I felt my pulse hammering.
There was no way back after this.
No pretending.
No half-truths.
Only honesty.
The terrible kind.
The kind that permanently alters a conversation.
The kind that permanently alters people.
I forced myself to say it.
"This isn’t the first time we’ve been here."
The words hung between us.
Simple.
Clear.
Devastating.
I watched them reach him.
Watched the realization begin spreading through his thoughts.
Not fully.
Not yet.
But enough.
Enough to understand the implication.
Enough to recognize the scale.
Enough to know this wasn’t merely about me anymore.
The fortress faded from my awareness.
The mountains disappeared.
The wind vanished.
For several seconds there was only silence.
Only Kael.
Only the truth.
Only the distance those words had created.
Or perhaps revealed.
I didn’t know which was worse.
Then something unexpected happened.
He didn’t interrupt.
He didn’t argue.
He didn’t tell me I was wrong.
He didn’t demand proof.
He didn’t laugh.
He didn’t walk away.
He simply looked at me.
And as I watched, something changed in his eyes.
Not confusion.
That had been there before.
Not disbelief.
That wasn’t there at all.
Something deeper.
Something older.
Something that made my breath catch unexpectedly.
Recognition.
The sight sent a chill through me.
Because for the first time since this conversation began, I realized something I hadn’t considered before.
What if I wasn’t the only one remembering?
And judging by the look in Kael’s eyes, he might have just begun wondering the same thing.
