Chapter 94: Chapter 94 – The Distance That Keeps Growing
Chapter 94 – The Distance That Keeps Growing
POV: Liora
I was becoming very good at pretending.
The realization came to me one morning while sitting through breakfast, listening to conversations I barely heard and smiling at comments I couldn’t remember five seconds later.
Nobody seemed to notice.
Or perhaps they noticed and chose not to say anything.
Either way, I had learned how to make it look like everything was fine.
I knew when to smile.
I knew when to nod.
I knew how to answer questions without revealing how exhausted I truly was.
The performance had become second nature.
Unfortunately, pretending for everyone else was much easier than pretending for myself.
Because no matter how calm I appeared on the outside, I was unraveling on the inside.
Every day brought another memory.
Another fragment.
Another life.
Sometimes they arrived as flashes.
Sometimes they came as dreams.
Sometimes they appeared while I was fully awake, leaving me staring at places and people that no longer existed.
The worst part wasn’t seeing them.
The worst part was feeling them.
Their grief.
Their fears.
Their hopes.
Their love.
Every memory carried emotions powerful enough to leave me shaken long after the vision ended.
At first, I believed they belonged to strangers.
Then I learned the truth.
Now I wasn’t sure which possibility was worse.
Because if those memories truly belonged to me, then how many versions of myself existed inside my head?
And if they were all me...
what happened when I stopped being able to tell the difference?
The thought followed me everywhere.
It followed me through the fortress.
Through conversations.
Through sleepless nights.
Most of all, it followed me whenever Kael was near.
That was why I had started avoiding him.
Not intentionally.
At least not at first.
The distance happened gradually.
One missed meal.
One shortened conversation.
One excuse after another.
The pattern continued until I realized several days had passed without spending meaningful time together.
Part of me hated it.
The rest of me believed it was necessary.
Because every time I was near him, something inside me became complicated.
The bond still existed.
Stronger than ever.
Sometimes I could feel his presence before he entered a room.
Sometimes I sensed his emotions before he spoke.
Sometimes all it took was knowing he was nearby to make my pulse react.
That part remained unchanged.
It was everything else that frightened me.
The memories reacted to him.
At first, I thought I was imagining it.
Then it happened too often to ignore.
One afternoon I saw him crossing the training grounds below my balcony.
The moment my eyes found him, a memory surfaced.
Not a complete one.
Just a feeling.
Relief.
Intense and immediate.
The emotion arrived so suddenly that I actually grabbed the railing to steady myself.
The feeling didn’t belong to me.
Not entirely.
It belonged to someone who recognized him.
Someone who trusted him.
Someone who had loved him.
The realization should have been impossible.
Yet before I could process it, another reaction followed.
This one felt completely different.
Suspicion.
Distance.
Confusion.
The emotional shift happened so abruptly that it left me dizzy.
For several seconds, conflicting feelings collided inside my chest.
One part of me wanted to go to him.
Another part regarded him as a stranger.
A third seemed uncertain whether he represented safety or danger.
The contradiction terrified me.
Not because it happened.
Because it felt natural.
As though multiple perspectives were responding simultaneously.
I spent the rest of that day trying not to think about it.
The effort failed.
The following morning only made things worse.
I was walking through one of the eastern corridors when Kael appeared around the corner.
Our eyes met immediately.
The bond reacted first.
Warmth spread through me.
Familiar.
Comforting.
The connection I had come to rely on.
Then the memories responded.
A rush of emotions struck so quickly that I almost stumbled.
Recognition.
Grief.
Affection.
Loss.
Longing.
The intensity stole my breath.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure which emotions belonged to me and which belonged to someone else.
Kael immediately noticed something was wrong.
Of course he did.
His expression changed as he approached.
"Liora?"
I forced a smile.
"I’m fine."
The lie sounded weak even to my own ears.
His eyes narrowed.
Neither of us believed it.
For several seconds neither spoke.
The silence stretched between us.
I hated it.
There was a time when silence with Kael felt comfortable.
Now it felt dangerous.
Because every quiet moment gave the memories room to breathe.
Room to surface.
Room to remind me that I no longer fully understood my own mind.
"I’ve barely seen you lately," he said carefully.
The words carried no accusation.
That somehow made them harder to hear.
I looked away.
The corridor suddenly felt too small.
Too narrow.
Too intimate.
"I’ve been busy."
The excuse sounded ridiculous.
We both knew it.
Kael continued watching me.
Waiting.
Giving me every opportunity to tell the truth.
I couldn’t.
Not because I didn’t trust him.
Because I didn’t trust myself.
How was I supposed to explain something I barely understood?
How was I supposed to tell him that every time I looked at him, it felt as though dozens of invisible voices reacted differently?
That some memories recognized him.
Others didn’t.
That some seemed drawn toward him while others remained distant.
That occasionally I felt emotions so foreign they frightened me?
The truth sounded insane.
Even inside my own head.
Eventually Kael stepped aside.
His expression remained calm.
But disappointment lingered beneath it.
Not anger.
Not frustration.
Something worse.
Concern.
The sight filled me with guilt.
Because I knew I was hurting him.
I simply didn’t know how to stop.
The distance continued growing after that.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Like a crack spreading through stone.
Every day became slightly more difficult than the one before.
Every interaction demanded more effort.
Every conversation felt like a balancing act between honesty and self-preservation.
The memories grew stronger.
Clearer.
More persistent.
Sometimes I woke remembering names that weren’t mine.
Sometimes I knew details about places I had never visited.
Sometimes I felt emotions that appeared without warning and vanished just as quickly.
The boundaries separating past and present continued weakening.
And Kael remained at the center of all of it.
One evening I finally understood why.
I was standing alone on a balcony overlooking the forest when another memory surfaced.
This one lasted longer than most.
Long enough for me to experience it fully.
I wasn’t myself.
Yet somehow I was.
I stood beside a man beneath a silver moon.
His face remained frustratingly unclear.
The memory refused to reveal it.
But the emotions came through perfectly.
Trust.
Love.
Devotion.
The certainty of belonging beside someone.
The feeling wrapped around me so completely that tears burned behind my eyes.
Then the memory ended.
And I realized something horrifying.
The man wasn’t Kael.
The understanding struck me with brutal force.
Not because I loved someone else.
Because some version of me had.
Some life.
Some memory.
Some existence buried beneath centuries of forgotten history.
The realization opened a door I had been desperately avoiding.
Not all of these memories belonged to the same person.
Not all of these emotions belonged to the same life.
The people surfacing inside my mind weren’t identical.
They carried different experiences.
Different relationships.
Different losses.
Different loves.
Which meant something even worse.
Not every part of me recognized Kael as my mate.
The thought settled into my chest like ice.
I stared out across the darkened forest while the implications unfolded.
The Liora standing here loved Kael.
There was no uncertainty about that.
But what about the others?
The women whose memories lived inside me?
The lives I had begun remembering?
The pieces of myself awakening one by one?
Did they love him?
Did they know him?
Would they choose him?
Or would they see a stranger where I saw home?
For the first time since this began, I felt truly afraid.
Not of the memories.
Not of the awakening.
Not even of whatever I was becoming.
I was afraid of losing the one thing that still felt unquestionably mine.
My love for him.
The thought lingered long after darkness covered the mountains.
Long after the fortress fell silent.
Long after I returned to my room.
I lay awake staring at the ceiling, unable to escape the question circling endlessly through my mind.
If these memories continued growing stronger...
If more lives continued surfacing...
If one day I lost the ability to separate who I was from who I had been...
Then what would happen to the choices I make now?
What would happen to the woman Kael loved?
The answer refused to come.
Only the question remained.
Quiet.
Terrifying.
Impossible to ignore.
If I lose myself completely...
will I still choose him?
