Alina & Atlas POV

Alina

The morning light slipped through the tall windows, pale and cold. It painted the walls in gold, but there was no warmth in it—only the sharp reminder that a new day had come and I was still trapped inside Sterling Manor.

I sat up slowly, the silken sheets tangling around my legs. My head throbbed faintly from the night before—too many stares, too many lies, too much truth hiding behind beautiful faces. The garden, the maze, the argument… and Ares’s silence. ...