Rhea didn't speak for a long time.
She couldn't.
Her brain was a storm — lightning, thunder, memories she didn't know she had suddenly slamming into her like bricks to the chest. Isaac. The boy who saved her. The man who followed her across lifetimes. The protector who had loved her so fiercely, he bent death itself.
And lied every time he brought her back.
"You kept bringing me back," she whispered. "Why?"
Isaac didn't look away. "Because I couldn't lose you again."
"Again?" Rhea's voice cracked. "What was I to you? A promise? A mission? A mistake you couldn't let go?"
Jace stood off to the side, arms crossed. Silent. Watching like a blade waiting to be drawn.
Isaac stepped closer. "You were everything. In your first life, you chose me. Loved me. And then the Seers took you. They said your visions would tear the world apart. So they locked your memories… and tried to destroy your soul. I swore I'd never let them succeed."
"So you forced me to live.""I saved you."
"You stole me from peace."
She turned away, breathing hard, hands clenched.
Every flash of a life before — the fire, the sea, the blade, the noose — came back sharper now. Her own screams. Her own choices. Her own deaths. All of them ended the same way.
Just before the light took her… he pulled her back.
"Do you even know what that did to me?" she said. "Twenty-six lives and not one of them truly mine. All because you couldn't let go."
"I didn't let go," Isaac said softly, "because I knew one day, you'd remember. One day, you'd be strong enough to break it yourself."
"No," Jace cut in. "Don't spin this like it was a gift. You didn't just bend fate, Isaac. You rewrote it. And you didn't do it alone."
Rhea turned, eyes sharp. "What?"
Jace sighed, stepped forward.
"There's a third player here. Someone older than both of us. Someone who feeds off reincarnation. They've been riding your resurrection cycles like a parasite, harvesting the energy every time you die and come back. That's why the Veil's thinning. That's why the shadow's stronger."
"Then who is it?" Rhea asked."We don't know yet. But you've met them before. In every life."
Silence fell.
And in that stillness, the shadow returned.
Not in the Veil.
In her reflection.
Rhea's body froze. Her eyes locked onto the mirror across the church. Her reflection was smiling again — not evil. Not smug.
Just… tired. Like it knew everything was about to collapse.
And then the shadow spoke without moving its lips.
"They lied to you, Rhea. Both of them."
Rhea stepped forward, breath hitching. "What do you mean?"
"The one who cursed you loved you. The one who saved you needed you. And the one who's coming next? They'll destroy you."
Cracks split the mirror.The stained glass behind her shivered.The ground trembled.
"They're already here."
The church exploded with black light.
Screams echoed not from her, not from Jace or Isaac, but from the air itself.
The Veil burst open like a ripped page.
And through it stepped a figure in silver.
Their face… familiar. But wrong.
And Rhea, barely standing, whispered just one thing:
"No… it's her."
The shadow wasn't inside her anymore.
It was loose.