The world felt like it had tilted.
Rene's lungs burned, but she couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
Her father stood before them.
Alive.
But wrong.
His silver hair was the same. His face was the same. But those eyes—
They weren't his.
They were a void. A darkness that swallowed all light.
Adrian and Adriel stood frozen.
No.
Not frozen.
Shaking.
Rene had never seen her brothers shaken before.
Their silver eyes, always so cold and unreadable, were wide.
And in them, for the first time—
Was fear.
Adriel's fingers curled into fists, his silver frost crackling at his fingertips. His voice, when he spoke, was a whisper—barely holding back the storm inside him.
"You're dead."
Their father smiled.
"Am I?"
The ruins felt smaller. The walls closer. The air heavier.
Adrian took a slow step forward.
His usual cold indifference was gone.
Replaced by something raw.
"You left us," Adrian said, his voice low, trembling. "We searched for you."
Adriel swallowed hard. "We thought—"
"—you were gone forever," Adrian finished.
Their father tilted his head. "I was."
A pause.
And then—
He laughed.
A sharp, hollow sound.
"You still don't understand, do you?"
Adrian's jaw clenched.
Adriel took another step forward, his frost whipping violently around him.
"Then make us understand."
Their father's smile faded.
His black eyes turned to Rena.
And she—the child, the key, the one everyone had fought over—stared right back.
Unblinking. Unshaken.
Rene's pulse raced.
"What did you do?" she whispered.
Her father looked at her then. And for a fleeting moment—
There was something familiar in his face.
Not the monster.
Not the void.
Just—
A man who had once been her father.
A man who had once loved them.
His expression softened.
And then, so softly that it almost didn't feel real, he whispered:
"I'm sorry."
Rene's throat tightened.
But before she could say anything—
The past crashed over them.
---
(A Memory That Shouldn't Exist)
A vision.
A world blurred at the edges.
Rene stood in a place she didn't recognize—yet felt in her bones.
The air was thick with magic.
A room. A circle of light.
And her father stood in the center, his hands raised, shadows coiling at his fingertips.
A woman stood across from him.
Silver hair.
Sharp, piercing silver eyes.
Aeris.
She was younger—her expression colder, her posture tense.
"You can't do this," she said.
Her father—no, the man he had been—exhaled sharply. "It's already begun."
Aeris stepped forward. "You're going to doom her."
Her father's hands shook.
"She's already doomed."
The world blurred.
The vision shifted.
And suddenly—
There was a child.
Not a baby. Not yet.
Just a light.
A soul forming in the darkness.
A soul that was never meant to exist.
"You created her," Aeris whispered.
Her father's shoulders were tense. "I saved her."
"No," Aeris said. "You doomed her."
The scene fractured.
And suddenly—
Rene was falling.
---
(The Truth That Changes Everything)
She snapped back into the present with a gasp.
The ruins, the darkness, the weight of reality—all came crashing back.
Her father still stood there.
Still watching.
Lucien was stiff beside her.
Nyra's hand gripped her blade so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
Adrian and Adriel—they weren't shaking anymore.
Their silver eyes were burning.
Adriel's voice was quiet. Dangerous.
"You knew what we were from the beginning."
Adrian took a slow, sharp breath. "Did you ever love us?"
Their father's expression didn't change.
But in his dark, empty eyes—
There was something that almost looked like pain.
"You were never supposed to exist."
Silence.
A silence so thick it felt like the world itself had stopped breathing.
And then—
Adrian moved.
A blur of silver light and frost, his power erupting in a cold fury.
And this time—
He didn't hesitate.
Neither did Adriel.
They struck.
And their father—the man who was no longer their father—
Did not flinch.
As if he had expected it.
As if he had been waiting.
To Be Continued…