Chapter 62 Sixty-one
Chapter 62 Sixty-one
CHAPTER 61
THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
CCLARA’S POV
The room hummed faintly with the sound of rain.
It wasn’t the gentle kind, it came down sharp, needle-thin, tracing restless fingers down the cracked glass walls of her dorm. A flicker of blue light pulsed against her face. The data-pad in her hand glowed like something alive, and the file name on it stared back at her like an accusation:
SUBJECT: IRIA VALE
Clara’s thumb hovered over the screen. She had opened this file hundreds of times before, though every line inside it was already burned into her mind. She could recite the first page in her sleep, she often did. The longer she stared, the more her pulse thudded in her throat.
> “You should’ve deleted this,” she whispered to herself.
“Years ago.”
Her voice didn’t sound like her own anymore.
The screen flickered, lines of code swimming across it before the text stabilized again. She dragged her finger down, skimming past the reports, their births, deaths, energy traces, experiments. The usual lies dressed in sterile words. She stopped on one image: a family photo.
Iria, barely a year old. Her parents, Dr. Aelric Vale and Lysandra Vale, both smiling with that wild, defiant brightness people used to have before the Blood Moon touched everything.
Clara’s breath hitched. The corner of her vision blurred.
She set the pad aside, pressing her palms to her temples. The sound of rain was louder now, like the sky itself was whispering.
And then the whisper turned into memory.
THE FIRST MEMORY
She was back there the Archive’s forbidden wing.
The air smelled of dust and iron, every corridor a skeleton made of light. Her footsteps echoed down the metal floor, and the deeper she went, the colder it got.
At first, she thought it was the hum of the security systems. But then she heard it, a woman’s voice, fragile as a prayer:
> “Run, Iria. Run.”
Clara turned sharply, flashlight trembling.
The air shimmered, and for one impossible instant, she saw it: a reflection in the glass, not her own. A child, barefoot, terrified, clutching something small and glowing against her chest. Then a crash, a flash of red, the metallic taste of blood in the air.
Clara gasped, back in the Archive hallway, the scent of smoke still clinging to her hair even though nothing burned.
She hadn’t just read Iria’s file that night.
She had felt it.
The memory had attached itself to her like static, unshakable, electric.
And ever since that night, every dream she had ended the same way: with the sound of that woman’s voice, whispering through fire.
PRESENT — THE FILE AND THE FACE
Back in her room, Clara’s fingers trembled as she scrolled through images, snapshots from the Academy’s surveillance: Iria walking through the courtyard, her hair catching sunlight like gold fire.
Brian was in the background, composed and unreadable. Grey leaned in close beside her, his posture too casual, his gaze too fierce.
Clara’s throat tightened.
She wanted to look away, but couldn’t.
It wasn’t just jealousy, though it burned like acid. It was something older, more primal. A fear that she was watching history repeat itself, and she was standing in the wrong place again.
> “You never deserved their love,” she whispered, her reflection glimmering faintly on the dark screen.
“You just… stood where I couldn’t.”
But even as she said it, she knew it was a lie.
Iria hadn’t stolen anything from her.
Fate had just chosen her instead.
THE SECOND MEMORY
She closed her eyes, and the world fell away again.
Rain on metal. Sirens. Screams.
She saw the wreckage of the Vale laboratory as it was decades ago, before the Academy scrubbed it clean.
Flashes of burning paper.
A voice shouting commands.
A small form being lifted into someone’s arms and carried away.
She couldn’t see who the rescuer was. Only the after-image:
A crimson moon reflected on shattered glass.
Blood on someone’s hands, her own?
And the faint hum of power pulsing through the wreckage like a living thing.
Then, a whisper:
> “They said only one survived.”
“But they never said what she brought back with her.”
The words echoed like prophecy.
THE MESSAGE
A sudden vibration snapped her back to reality. Her comm unit lit up, a soft pulse of red. She hesitated before answering.
> “Clara,” the filtered voice rasped, distorted by interference.
“The girl will break tonight. Ensure it.”
Kael.
Always Kael.
Her chest tightened.
She didn’t respond.
Didn’t even breathe.
When the line went dead, she deleted the message, but slowly, as if deleting it might erase the sound of his voice in her skull.
It didn’t.
She closed her eyes, feeling the static crawl beneath her skin. There was a time she had followed his every order without question. A time she believed the enemy’s end justified every scar she carried.
But now?
Now, every time she looked at Iria, she wasn’t sure who the enemy was anymore.
THE THIRD MEMORY
That night, the dream came again.
Only this time, it wasn’t Iria’s mother who whispered.
It was Kael.
> “You think she’s your rival,” he said, voice echoing in a void of fire and mirrors.
“But she’s your mirror. What burns her, burns you.”
She woke up gasping, drenched in cold sweat. The air in the room shimmered faintly. For a split second, she thought she saw someone standing at the foot of her bed.
A girl, smiling. Eyes glowing faintly.
But when Clara blinked, the girl was gone.
THE VOW
She stood before her mirror, trying to steady her breath. Her reflection stared back, almost familiar. Almost hers.
> “If the Blood Moon wants her,” she whispered, voice low, trembling, “then it can have her.”
She touched the mirror’s cold surface, leaving a fogged fingerprint.
> “But the world will remember me, too.”
Her reflection smiled first.
Not wide, not cruel, just… knowing.
A tiny crack ran down the corner of the mirror, splintering the image of her face.
Outside, the rain slowed to a whisper.
The night held its breath.
And somewhere beyond the dorm walls, the Blood Moon rose, unseen, casting the faintest red sheen over the world.
Clara turned off the light and sat in the darkness, whispering Iria’s name like both a curse and a prayer.