Chapter 35: Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter 35

Edgar’s POV

The nights had grown colder since she left.

Not the kind of cold that bit into your skin and made you curse the wind, but the kind that settled into your bones and stayed there. The kind that made you wake up shivering even under layers of wool and fire. The kind that made silence unbearable.

Everything I touched felt dull. The world had lost its color. My senses, once sharp as a blade, were slow, as though dulled by frostbite.

Every room felt too quiet. Every council meeting, a blur of voices I barely registered. Even my wolf had gone silent. Withdrawn.

It wasn’t just guilt anymore.

It was grief.

She was gone. And I’d driven her away.

No, destroy her.

And yet, I kept pretending to lead. To rule. To breathe. But inside, I was unraveling.

Then Quinn came.

She asked to see me in private, something I should’ve refused. I’d avoided her since that night, avoided everything that reminded me of what I’d said to Lia, of what I’d become.

But there was something in Quinn’s voice I hadn’t heard before.

Not manipulation. Not venom.

Fear.

I agreed, but only because the part of me that needed answers was louder than the part that wanted to stay in the dark.

We met in the old observatory near the northern cliffs. A crumbling tower of stone and moonlight, long abandoned and left to rot with the ghosts of the past. Far from Duskwood. Far from listening ears.

It was the kind of place where secrets clung to the walls like moss, old, stubborn, and heavy.

She stood near the broken railing, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. The moon cast her in silver, making her look fragile. Small.

For the first time, she didn’t look like the girl who knew how to get her way.

She looked… tired.

Or maybe I was only just now seeing her for who she was.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, voice barely more than a whisper.

“You have three minutes,” I said coldly. “Say what you came to say.”

Her lip trembled, but she held my gaze. “It wasn’t supposed to go that far.”

“What wasn’t?” My tone was ice.

She hesitated. Just enough to make my wolf stir, weakly, distantly. Like a flicker of breath in a tomb.

“The attack,” she said. “The kidnapping. Lia’s mark being exposed. All of it.”

My blood ran cold.

I took a step forward. “You were the one who tried to take her?”

“No, no,” she said quickly, both hands raised. “I was the messenger. Nothing more.”

“Messenger for who?” I demanded.

She swallowed hard, the fear now plain in her eyes. “Your mother.”

Silence. Cold. Heavy. Shattering.

Something inside me cracked.

Then I laughed. A sharp, hollow sound that echoed off the stones like a curse.

Not because it was funny.

Because it made sense.

The poison in Lia’s dream. The whispers. The tension that had lingered like smoke after fire. My mother’s sharp disdain. Her veiled comments. Her obsession with bloodlines and control.

She’d known. She’d planned this.

And I’d called Lia a liar.

“She told me,” Quinn continued, voice trembling, “that if I ever breathed a word, I’d be next. She said she’d destroy me, Edgar. And that you’d help her do it.”

I clenched my fists so tightly my nails dug into my skin. I didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

“She made me watch,” Quinn whispered, taking a shaky step forward. “When Lia collapsed. When you marked her to save her life. She said it was unnatural. That she’d rather see you cursed than see you bound to a girl like her.”

The railing dug into my palms as I turned away, eyes burning.

I should have seen it.

All of it.

But I’d been blind. Blinded by loyalty. By guilt. By the illusion of control.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Quinn said, voice cracking now. “But your mother… She has leverage on everyone. I thought if I obeyed, she’d leave Lia alone.”

“But she didn’t,” I whispered, jaw tight. “She used you like a pawn. And I played right into it.”

Quinn said nothing. The only sound between us was the wind and the distant crash of waves below the cliffs.

I saw Lia’s face again, burned into memory. The pain in her eyes when I said those words. The betrayal. The way her shoulders collapsed like the air had left her lungs.

I did that.

And for what?

For the illusion of truth?

For the woman who raised me but never truly loved me?

“She’s a monster,” I said finally. “Always has been.”

Quinn took a slow breath. “It’s not too late.”

I turned to face her. “It is.”

“No,” she said, softer now. “You can still find her. Apologize. Bring her back.”

I looked past her, toward the horizon. The stars blurred slightly. Or maybe that was my vision. Everything felt fractured.

“And if she doesn’t want to be found?”

Quinn hesitated, then said, “Then let her see you suffer for what you did. Let her see the cost. At least then she’ll know you care.”

I stared at her for a long time. For the first time, she looked like a girl who had nothing left to lose.

I nodded once.

“Go,” I said quietly. “You’ve said enough.”

She didn’t argue. Just turned and walked into the shadows, her cloak trailing behind her like smoke.

I remained behind, the wind howling around me, cutting through the seams in my coat, echoing the storm inside me.

My mother had lied. Manipulated. Controlled everything. And I… I let her.

I’d chosen her word over Lia’s truth.

I’d broken my mate.

I gripped the railing so tightly it groaned beneath my fingers.

She was gone. And I’d driven her away with the same hands that once promised to protect her.

The moon rose higher, casting pale light over the cliffs. I could hear the ocean far below, wild, merciless, endless. Just like the guilt in my chest.

I closed my eyes.

I couldn’t feel my wolf anymore. Not fully. Just a whisper of him, curled up somewhere deep, as broken as I was.

And I wondered, not for the first time, if I was already cursed.

Maybe my mother got what she wanted after all.

Because now… I wasn’t just losing Lia.

I was losing myself.