Page 164

The Unraveling tore through Ysella's failing ward and struck her full in the chest.

Dark.

Silent.

Final.

She didn't scream.

She just looked at me, and her gaze was calm. Like she'd already made peace with this moment.

“Don't forget.” Her edges began to blur and fragment. “Where you come from. . . who your mother was. . . who you truly are. . .”

Then she was gone.

Unmade.

Where she had stood, a single golden thread drifted downward like a fallen leaf—the last remnant of a life that had burned too bright, taken because she dared to love someone worth saving.

The square fell into hollow silence.

Lily dropped to her knees, hands shaking in the space Ysella had stood.

From the tunnel entrance, Syra's scream pierced the stillness—raw, broken, the sound of a sister's heart tearing.

“She saved me,” Lily's words came in gasps. “She was safe. She was safe and she came back⁠—”

I fell beside Lily, reaching for something that was no longer there. My hand curled around empty air—air that should have held warmth, held life, held a woman who'd just saved us all.

She was just gone. Not dead. Not bleeding out. Just. . . erased. Like she'd never existed at all.

And I couldn't save her. Couldn't protect her. Could only watch as my father unmade another life without hesitation.

Elias stood across the courtyard, already turning away as if Ysella's death—her complete erasure from existence—meant nothing at all.

But something cracked.

Not just in the Weave.

Not just in the world.

In me.

Twenty-two years of loyalty. Of obedience. Of believing my father served a greater good. All of it—every lesson, every hunt, every justification—shattered in the space where Ysella had stood.

He'd killed her. Not because she was a threat. Not because she was dangerous. Because she was inconvenient.

The careful control I'd maintained, the hunter's discipline that had kept me focused, it all shattered like glass. Rage poured through the cracks, white-hot and consuming.

I rose to my feet, and when I looked at Elias, I saw nothing but a target.

The hunt was over.

Now came the reckoning.

CHAPTER 51

LILY