Chapter 78: UNVEILED

Xender's POV

I stood in total, paralyzed awe as I watched her through the tiny crack in the door, actively talking to the plain air. She was gesturing and whispering as if someone were meant to be standing right there in front of her, but in reality, there was absolutely no one.

It felt like I was about to go completely, irrevocably crazy. Did she just hug the plain air? Who on earth was she talking to?

What happened last night? Why did it feel like some unseen force was desperately trying to keep me from knowing the truth about everything? I was so entirely sure I had seen three crystal-green diamond stones. I was sure I saw them let out a massive blast of light that threw me violently across the room. I could still distinctly remember the blinding pain that had ripped through my skull as my head collided with the solid wall. I could swear I had heard the sickening crack of my own skull, followed immediately by the rush of a warm liquid.

My hand immediately ran through the thick hair at the back of my head, desperately searching for the wound. But there was nothing. No swelling. No pain. No dried blood. No injuries whatsoever.

What on earth was happening to me? Am I genuinely losing my mind and seeing things that aren't even real? Or maybe... just maybe, I wasn't actually the crazy one here.

“What exactly are you doing peeping around up here?”

I jumped nearly out of my skin at the sharp sound of Emily's voice behind me. I spun around quickly to face my sister, trying to block her view of the cracked door.

“Nothing," I stammered, frantically trying to smooth over the obvious nervousness bleeding into my voice. "I was just… just making sure Kate was okay. She was supposed to be sleeping beside me when I woke up, but she wasn't there, so I thought I could check up on her.”

I watched Emily’s eyes twitch slightly as a suspicious frown rested on her features for a split second, before a massive, knowing smile completely broke out across her face.

“Wow. My no-nonsense, workaholic brother is finally, desperately in love,” she teased, her voice drastically shifting into a highly amused, mocking tone. She gave me a wicked, playful smile, but I was in absolutely no mood to be teased.

“Not now, Emily,” I muttered, giving her a dark, warning look before I brushed past her and started making my way back down the hall to my own room.

“I am just so incredibly glad you didn't bring home a stack of business documents to marry as your wife!” she called out after me, her laughter echoing down the corridor.

“Not now, Emily!” I called back over my shoulder.

Before I could firmly shut the heavy bedroom door behind me, I heard her scream one last directive: “Freshen up and come down for breakfast right now!”

Completely ignoring Emily’s demands, I moved heavily toward the edge of my mattress and sat down. I looked around the quiet room, letting the terrifying memories of what I had presumed was a mere dream replay right in front of me like a horror movie. I stood up and walked over toward the exact section of the wall I remembered colliding with. The white marble design was completely clean. There wasn't a single drop, smear, or stain of blood whatsoever.

I felt my head begin to tremble with a dull, echoing pain as I tried to piece the fragments together, but it just wasn't making any logical sense.

Anger flared in my chest, and I stormed toward the bathroom as my own spiraling emotions began to break out of control. Yanking off my clothes and tossing them carelessly onto the bed, I stepped straight into the glass shower enclosure and hit the faucet, turning the hot water on full blast.

But as the steaming streams began hitting the back of my head, I froze. The water pooling before my bare feet, swirling down toward the drain on the stark white floor, was heavily stained.

It was bright, crimson blood.

Alda's POV

I sat quietly at the grand dining table right next to Emily, who was completely focused on feeding her daughter, Elara. A light, pleasant conversation drifted among the rest of the family members at the table. The newly appointed grandparents were bursting with excitement, far more interested in capturing Elara’s giggles and her barely clear, babbling words as she interacted with her new family.

The little girl's natural charm was something nobody in the room could ignore, and watching her instantly had me wondering what it would have felt like if I had been allowed to keep and raise my own baby. Heavy tears instantly clouded my vision, but I strictly refused to let them fall in front of Xender's family. Instead, I forced the emotion down, aggressively shoving spoonfuls of the rice and savory soup sitting in front of me into my mouth.

At some point, the heavy sensation of being watched made me pause. When I slowly looked up, my eyes locked directly onto Xender.

The moment we had arrived at the breakfast table, he had deliberately bypassed his usual seat to sit directly opposite me, and I had already caught him a couple of times staring intently at me. I couldn't quite define the exact expression lingering deep in his eyes, but I knew it wasn't a good one. At first, he looked entirely confused, but then his expression hardened into anger, before finally switching into a piercing, questioning gaze that seemed to drill right through my skull.

Then, his lips moved. “Siofra.”

The moment he muttered that foreign name out loud, I gasped in absolute shock. The sudden intake of air caused the food filling my mouth to slide down the wrong pipe, and I began choking violently.

“Kate!” Emily's panicked voice rang out across the dining room. She immediately poured a cold glass of water and rushed to my side, gently stroking my back to help me clear my airways.

I grabbed the glass with a trembling hand and drank the water down in massive gulps, trying desperately to calm the burning fire in my throat. When I finally wiped my mouth and looked back across the table at Xender, he hadn't moved an inch. He was still seated rigidly in his chair, completely motionless, his dark gaze remaining locked strictly on me.

“Are you okay, sweetie? You seriously need to eat slowly, or you're going to keep choking on your food,” Emily said, her concerned gaze scanning my face.

The rough coughing persisted, making it impossible to blend back into the background. I knew I had to excuse myself immediately before the entire table started investigating.

“I'm fine, Emily. I just... I really need to use the restroom. Thank you so much for the wonderful meal.”

Without waiting for a response, I immediately rushed out of the formal dining room. Behind me, the cheerful atmosphere of the breakfast party had completely dialed down, and the entire room's attention had shifted directly to my sudden exit. As I made my way out toward the foyer, I could faintly hear Emily's voice urgently whispering to Xender, telling him to go upstairs after me. On the inside, however, I was running as fast as my weak legs could carry me, trying my absolute best to get as far away from him as possible.

The moment I was within the safe, enclosed space of my guest room, I turned around, only to find Siofra already standing across from the bed. She had a deeply disturbing, tense look on her face. She had vanished the moment I originally headed down for breakfast, so I wasn't entirely surprised to see her waiting for me in the room, but the sheer panic radiating from her posture told me everything I needed to know.

“What's wrong, Siofra?” I asked, rushing toward her.

“I think we have already been completely exposed, Alda," Siofra said, her mental voice sounding thoroughly troubled and frantic. "I think Xender has somehow figured out exactly what happened to his head last night.”

“Did you hear him literally whisper your name out loud at the dining table?!” I asked, pacing back and forth across the rug in a panic. “And that intense, suffocating gaze in his eyes... I have never in my life seen him look at me like that before. Siofra, I can't keep lying to him. I think I just need to confess and tell him the absolute truth.”

As the words left my mouth, I noticed Siofra’s gaze suddenly freeze, locking directly onto the space behind my shoulder.

Following her terrified line of sight, I spun around slowly, only to find Xender standing right inside the threshold of the room. He had pushed the door open silently, and his dark eyes were fixed entirely on me.

I froze completely, the air leaving my lungs. His intense, questioning eyes were locked onto my position like a lethal predator trying to pin down its prey.

“Tell me the truth about what, Alda?” he demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low rumble. “And who exactly are you talking to right now? Better yet... what am I even saying? Who are you, and why the hell are you occupying Alda's body?”

A sharp, horrified gasp left my lips. I realized with an absolute jolt of terror that while he was staring directly at my face, his furious questions weren't actually being directed at me at all.

He was looking straight past me—staring directly at Siofra.