Auren POV

Her breath caught, sharp and fragile in the quiet, and I felt my fists curl at my sides until my knuckles ached. This wasn’t something she expected to hear hell, I never expected to say it aloud again. Speaking the truth felt like tearing open an old wound that never healed right.

Only a handful of people had ever heard me confess what happened: my parents, Lysandra, Lucen, and Sylira’s mother. Lucen had drifted away long ago, and after my last argument with Lysandra, things ...