Rhea didn't tell Isaac about the grave.
She wanted to. Almost did. But something held her back — like if she said it out loud, the date would come faster. Like speaking it would make it real.
Instead, she focused on the one name that kept circling her brain like a vulture.
Jace.
She met him in the old church outside town — the place where the veil between worlds had once torn wide open in one of her past lives. She didn't remember the details, just the screams. The blood. The echo of her own voice begging someone — anyone — to stop.
"Why here?" she asked, stepping through the broken doorway.
Jace stood beneath the shattered stained glass window, haloed by colored light and dust.
"Because this is where it started."
Rhea didn't blink. "Then start talking."
Jace looked… tired. Not physically. Soul tired. Like someone who had lived through too many stories with too many endings.
"You want the truth?" he said. "Fine. You were never cursed, Rhea. You were chosen."
She laughed. Bitter. Dry. "Oh yeah? Chosen to suffer?"
"Chosen to remember. You're not just the 27th soul… you're the original. The first. Every life since has been a splinter of you trying to come back whole."
Her breath caught.
"Then who are you?"
Jace hesitated.
"I was your guardian. I was supposed to guide you. Protect you. But I failed."
He stepped forward, eyes locked on hers.
"The one keeping you alive isn't your enemy. It's someone you loved. Someone who loved you so much, they broke the rules to bring you back. Again. And again. And again."
Her mind spun. "Who?"
Jace didn't answer.
He stepped aside.
And behind him, stepping out from the shadows of the altar…
…was Isaac.
His expression was unreadable.
"I told you I'd protect you, Rhea," he said softly. "I just didn't say how."
Rhea's knees gave out.
Everything she thought she knew — her past lives, her curse, the shadow — it all bent around this moment.
Isaac wasn't just a protector.
He was the one pulling her back every time she died.
The question now wasn't why.
It was what price had he paid to keep doing it?