I flipped open my journal to a fresh page. This time, it wasn't lyrics that spilled onto the paper.
No, this was different.
This time, I was gathering pieces of a puzzle.
I grabbed my pen, the ink flowing fast and messy as I began scribbling like mad, listing everything strange, unnatural, everything that didn't make sense from the day of Lara's birthday party onward.
My handwriting grew harsher, bolder, as I pressed harder, trying to pull together the pieces.
None of this was random.
I took a moment to stare at the pages, my chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths.
My mind picked out four common factors.
Riven. Lara. The Shadows. The Ancient Rune.
The ink smudged beneath my fingers as I dragged my thumb over the names, my mind racing through everything I had ignored, every thread I had failed to follow.
My eyes drifted back to Riven's name, the ink still fresh, the letters bold and unshakable against the page.
My grip tightened around the pen.
Everything I had written pointed to one undeniable truth: he knew exactly who the dark forces were. That much was clear.
But how?
Even though he told me to trust him, to let him handle whatever this was, I had seen the uncertainty in his eyes.
He wasn't as in control as he wanted me to believe.
He was afraid. But he would never admit it.
However, that wasn't the only thing that didn't add up.
Riven himself was still a mystery.
He had been vague, evasive about where he had come from, never giving a straight answer.
And why, of all places, was he staying with Zion?
That had never made sense to me. Zion wasn't exactly the type to take people in without a reason.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized Riven wasn't just hiding something.
He was hiding himself.
And I needed to find out why.
I shifted my gaze back to the journal, to the name that I still can't believe was involved in this whole thing. Lara.
My chest tightened, a sharp pang of hurt threading through my ribs, but I pushed it down.
Lara had already picked her side.
She hadn't just been keeping things from me, she had been lying.
Lying about that night. Lying about who she was with, what she knew, what she had seen.
I had ignored the feeling at The Velvet Lounge, forced myself to believe her vague excuses, convinced myself I was imagining things. But the truth was staring me in the face, and I couldn't pretend anymore.
She knew what had happened to me. She knew exactly who I had encountered, the one who had sent me spiraling into terror.
Because she was with him.
He-who-shall-not-be-named.
Lara's mysterious friend. The one she had called the man of her dreams while refusing to tell me his name. The one she had gotten drunk with the night she came home looking haunted and distant.
The same man who was there at Lune Noire.
Coincidence?
Not a damn chance.
My stomach twisted.
Whoever he was, he didn't want me to remember him.
That was the reason for the void in my mind, the missing pieces of that night. I had seen him, I had looked straight at him, and something inside me had recognized him. But now? That moment was gone, stripped from me like it had never existed.
I swallowed hard, my fingers digging into the edges of the journal.
He had tried to restrain the Rune's power.
He was afraid of it.
Afraid that it would expose who he really was.
And there was only one kind of being who would need to suppress the magic of an Ancient Rune to keep themselves hidden.
An ancient entity.
Someone old, someone powerful. Someone who existed in the realm of whispers and shadows, someone who could manipulate memory, twist perception, and leave behind only darkness.
I gripped my pen so hard I thought it might snap.
My pulse pounded as my gaze flickered to the last two factors I had written down.
Shadows. The Ancient Rune.
A sick feeling settled deep in my gut.
No. No, no, no. It couldn't be.
My mind spun backward, dredging up visions I had ignored, warnings buried in magic I hadn't yet understood. The Rune had shown me. It had pulled me toward something I had refused to face.
The adversaries. Fire and shadow.
The cold, soulless eyes that had stared at me through the veil of dreams and nightmares.
A force of darkness, a creature that existed in the form of pure shadow, something feared even among the strongest of Elarion's beings.
The realization sent a jolt of pure ice through my veins.
Was it possible… the Noctari King was back?
The thought clawed through me, vicious and unrelenting.
The Noctari King.
The name itself felt wrong, like something that shouldn't be spoken aloud. A nightmare buried in history, a terror meant to be dead and forgotten.
Yet the pieces fit too perfectly.
The shadows. The whispers. The way my mind had been wiped clean of his face, as if he had reached into my thoughts and ripped himself from existence.
The Rune had tried to warn me.
And Lara?
She had known all along.
I pushed off my bed, shoving my journal aside as I paced, blood roaring in my ears. My breathing came fast, ragged, my fingers twitching at my sides.
I needed to calm down, to think, but my mind was a storm, whipping through every memory, every missed detail I had ignored.
If the Noctari King was truly back, then Lara was involved with him.
That realization hit just as hard as the first.
She hadn't just lied to me. She had aligned herself with him.
Whatever that meant, whatever she had chosen, it wasn't me.
And it never had been.
A bitter taste filled my mouth, a mix of anger and something more painful, something deeper.
I had ignored the signs.
The way she had brushed me off.
The way she had avoided my questions.
The way she had been missing at the exact moment I had fallen apart at Lune Noire.
Had she known I would be attacked? Had she known what he would do to me?
I inhaled sharply, forcing myself to focus, to push through the haze of betrayal burning behind my ribs.
There was only one way to get the truth.
I needed to talk to Lara.
A quick glance at my bedside clock told me it was already 4 a.m.
I wasn't waiting.
I needed answers, and I needed them now.
I stormed down the hall, my heart pounding, rage bubbling over, twisting, suffocating. My body still ached, the marks on my skin still burned, but I barely felt them now.
Because this, this was deeper than pain.
This was betrayal.
I threw open Lara's door, barely registering the soft glow of her bedside lamp or the steady rhythm of her breathing.
There she was, sleeping peacefully under her covers, as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn't ripped a hole straight through my trust, as if she hadn't chosen him over me.
My hands shook with fury.
Without hesitation, I snatched her covers back, gripping her shoulder and shaking her awake.
"Lara. Wake up."
She stirred, mumbling something incoherent, before blinking blearily at me.
I shook her harder, my voice sharper this time.
"Lara."
She sat up abruptly, her brows furrowing as she looked at me through sleep-heavy eyes. "What? What is going on?"
The words barely left her lips before my control snapped.
"You are a fucking backstabbing bitch."
Her face drained of color in an instant.
She was fully awake now.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, voice cautious, but I could see it, the flicker of panic in her eyes.
I let out a breathless, bitter laugh, sharp with disbelief and something dangerously close to heartbreak.
"Really?" My voice shook, but not with fear. "You can drop the act, Lara. I can't believe I trusted you. I let you stand beside me, knowing you were lying to my face, twisting the truth, manipulating me into thinking everything was fine, when it never was."
Lara's expression flickered, something flashing in her eyes too quickly for me to read. But I wasn't done.
I stepped closer, my heart pounding, my nails digging into my palms.
"And don't you dare pretend you weren't there when your mysterious friend, your so-called 'man of your dreams' assaulted me at Lune Noire."
For a moment, she just stared at me, her chest rising and falling with slow, measured breaths.
She blinked slowly, like she could not believe what she was actually hearing.
Before I could open my mouth to lash out at her, she laughed out loud.
A full, mocking laugh, sharp and dripping with something I couldn't place.
I was stunned, thrown off by her reaction.
But the shock was quickly swallowed by rage, blistering, searing, uncontrollable.
Before my mind could even register the movement, my body surged forward.
The crack of my palm against her cheek echoed through the room.
Lara's head snapped to the side, hair falling over her face as she stumbled back.
Silence crashed down between us, thick and suffocating, the kind of silence that came right before a storm.
She slowly lifted her head, turning back to face me, her eyes dark, glinting with something I had never seen before.
Her breath came out slow, measured, but when she spoke, her voice was razor-sharp.
"You fucking psychotic bitch."
The words hit harder than I expected, but I held my ground, chest heaving, hands trembling at my sides.
She reached up, brushing her fingers lightly over her cheek where my slap had landed, not in pain, but in cold calculation.
Then she stepped forward. Closer.
The air felt charged, heavy, like we had crossed some invisible line neither of us could step back from.
"You want answers?" Her voice was rising now, venom curling through every syllable.
She took another step.
"Here are your fucking answers."
Her breath came fast, ragged, as if she had been holding it all in for too long.
"I just met Cole, okay? And I kept him from you because I knew you would judge me. Because he's older than me. Because you would try to make me feel like some naive idiot who couldn't make her own choices."
I stiffened, but she didn't stop.
"But you want to know what else?" Her voice wasn't just angry now, it was shaking.
"He's helping me. Unlike you, he actually listens to me. He understands me. He's helping me find the answers I need, Athena. And I don't know what the hell you're on, but he is not, and I mean not, the fucking Noctari King."
My heart pounded violently against my ribs, but she kept going, her words spilling out like she had been dying to say them.
"You weren't supposed to meet him at Lune Noire. But you stumbled onto us when you were coming back from the ladies' room. I introduced you to him. You shook his hand, and then.."
Her voice hitched, her lips pressing together for a split second before she forced the words out.
"And then you just… stared at him. You looked at him like he was some kind of monster, like you saw something the rest of us didn't. And suddenly, you freaked out. Screaming. Gasping. Clutching your arm like you were possessed. He was just being polite to you, Athena, and you lost it."
Her eyes burned into mine, her rage radiating in waves, fueled by something deeper than just anger.
"You fucking embarrassed me."
I blinked, the weight of her words crashing over me.
She wasn't denying what had happened. She wasn't even questioning it.
She was angry that I reacted.
She was angry that I ruined her perfect little fantasy.
Something in me snapped.
"What the fuck, Lara? Are you blind?" My voice rose, frustration making my head pound. "He manipulated my mind. He wiped my memory. He suppressed the Rune's magic right in front of you!"
Her expression twisted with pure exasperation, like I was the one who refused to see reason.
"Gods, Athena. You lost it. No, seriously, you fucking lost it."
I lunged forward, gripping her shoulders, forcing her to listen.
"Lara, don't tell me you never saw them. The shadows around him. The way the air shifts when he is around. He is manipulating you. He is the Noctari King."
Her body tensed, and for a moment, I thought I had gotten through to her.
But then, she jerked away from my grip, shaking her head furiously.
"You need to stay away from him," I continued, desperate now. "You don't know what you're dealing with. He's dangerous. You're walking right into his trap."
Her hands balled into fists at her sides.
"Athena, stop."
"No, you need to listen to me..."
"Athena, I said stop."
"I am trying to help you..."
"I fucking said STOP!"
A sudden wave of power slammed into me, sending me flying backward.
My body collided with the wall, pain exploding across my skull as I hit the wall.
For a moment, everything blurred.
A sharp ringing echoed in my ears, drowning out the sound of my own ragged breathing. The dull ache from earlier roared back, doubling in intensity, spreading like fire through my limbs.
I tried to move, but my body felt heavy, sluggish.
Slowly, the world sharpened, and I became acutely aware of the silence.
Thick. Oppressive. Unforgiving.
Lara stood frozen, her chest heaving, her hands still faintly crackling with magic. Her eyes, once so familiar, were wide with shock.
She had never used her magic on me before.
I lifted my gaze, still disoriented, the weight of what had just happened settling over me like a stone.
For the first time in my life, Lara had hurt me.
She took a hesitant step forward, her fingers twitching like she wanted to reach for me but wasn't sure she should.
"Athena..." Her voice had lost its sharp edges, replaced by something softer, uncertain. "I..."
She extended her hand.
I flinched back.
"Don't touch me."
My voice was cold, hollow, edged with something deeper than anger.
"Athena, please."
I gritted my teeth, forcing myself up, ignoring the throbbing in my skull. "I said don't fucking touch me, Lara."
She flinched.
A long silence stretched between us, thick with something irreparable.
Then, the door creaked open.
I turned just in time to see Myrren standing at the entrance, her sharp gaze flickering between us.
She looked at Lara.
Then at me, bruised, shaken, standing against the wall.
Her voice cut through the thick air, smooth but firm.
"What is going on here?"
Neither of us spoke.
The tension in the room was suffocating.
I gritted my teeth, pushing off the wall, ignoring the sharp stab of pain in my skull as I steadied myself.
I met Myrren' gaze, my voice flat, emotionless.
"Why don't you ask your dear daughter?"
Before she could respond, I turned and walked out.