Chapter 149

CLAUDIA.

The memory continues to play out, but this time in a speed that doesn’t permit me to hear what is going on. I can only see flashes, fast pulses, as though the connection is slowly fading.

I see young Tristan get taken out of the cell. He gets washed, fed, and clothed properly, like a true young heir. His grandmother has already passed and he is alone now, except for what seems like a group of cousins who were expecting to get crowned and are angry that they weren’t.

His coronation plays out. His people seem to be confused but happy at the same time. He makes a speech that seems to have removed their doubts because after that, everyone just looks uniformly glad that he’s taken the spot. That makes me think that something is amiss. I don’t think everyone would just be happy to have a stranger take the highest spot in their system like that.

Like I predicted, the men who I thought were his cousins did indeed pick something up.

“We do not know who you are or where you came from,” one of the men says when they surround him at his table. “It’s strange that Granddad died just when you came in, just when he announced you as his next heir.”

I can see Tristan’s shoulders tense. I can tell that he didn’t expect this to happen even though he knows that he has done wrong. Still, he faces them calmly and says, “I don’t know what you are talking about. I am one of the cousins.”

“We never heard of you before,” another one of them says. “I would think he would have introduced you to us when he was still alive. Everything just feels so strange. You do understand, don’t you?”

“I do,” Tristan says, and it seems that for the first time, he feels genuine fear. He’s shifting on his seat and he doesn’t seem to know what to do. “I… I will be open to an investigation if that is what you wish.”

“That is what we want,” the men say, but before they can leave, Tristan gets up and uses his voice of command.

“No investigation will be conducted,” he says, making them pay attention. Their eyes glaze over as they watch him speak. “I am your cousin and you will believe that. I haven’t done anything wrong…”

He trails off, but I don’t think it’s from emotion. All color gets drained out of his face when he says those words, and I think he’s getting weaker from using his powers more and more.

More images flash by. He’s sitting behind a desk writing a letter. He lost even more weight than when he was in his cell. His skin is basically just hanging off him like a curtain. His eyes are dimmed down and he’s just staring at the paper he’s writing on.

I walk closer to him and see what he’s writing. It’s a letter addressed to his mother, even though he knows that she is long gone.

'I’m lost,' the letter says. 'I have done what you asked of me. I am now the Alpha of your pack but I don’t feel at home. It’s been two months now and I don’t feel anything good. Controlling the people is taking too much out of me. I don’t think I can hold them off any longer. Sooner or later they would start to question me. Who I am and who I came to be, what I did to get here. I killed your father. I have to tell someone or else I would go crazy.'

When he finishes writing, he allows himself a couple of moments to weep silently and then compose himself again. He walks over to the fireplace and drops the letter, watching it burn into ashes before walking away.

I watch as everything goes dark, and something from my reality pierces through. I hear Aristea’s voice echoing in my head. “Come back now, Claudia. You have done enough.”

I say yes to her internally, willing myself to go back. I can almost break through the surface and it feels like swimming from under the depths of the ocean to above on the shore. However, I barely make any progress when the darkness around me makes way to color and image yet again.

This time, something is different. I feel immersed in it, just like I was in the dream I had this morning. As the colors around me grow sharper, I realize that I’m in Sangria Amori. It’s nighttime, and I can see the edge of the forest. Something about the scene looks familiar, and as I look around, I realize that this is the night when Achilles lost his hearing and voice.

My heart starts to pound hard inside my chest. I hear footsteps behind me, and when I turn around, my knees almost buckle under my weight when I see that it’s a younger version of me walking hand in hand with Achilles.

But we are not alone. I can see a pair of red eyes in the distance, looming behind the bushes and almost completely invisible if you don’t look hard enough.

This. This is the missing piece of the puzzle. This is the night that changed everything, and I’m just about to watch it all go down.

“Come back now, Claudia,” I can hear Aristea saying, her voice sounding more and more distant. Now she sounds like she’s calling to me from a few rooms away. “You’re getting in too deep now….”

I know what she means, but it seems that the more I struggle to get away from here, the more stuck I get. I’m starting to get nervous now, but at the same time, I feel like I can’t take my eyes off the scene unfolding in front of me. I walk closer and closer to the old version of myself and Achilles, following them into the forest and watching them arrive at the clearing.

“We’re going to train,” I say in my tiny voice. “You’re going to help me learn, right?”

“Of course,” Achilles says, readying his stance. “Just stick close to me.”

My pulse starts to race. The pair of red eyes are following us. I can see it emerging through the clearing, and that’s when I see Tristan as his young self watching us from the sidelines.

I hear his thoughts. I feel his emotions. He’s angry at Achilles because he blames him for his mother’s death.

So this is where it came from. The Rogue who attacked was no other than Tristan himself. He went back to the Kingdom to look for answers, and the answer he saw was killing Achilles for the execution of his mother. I’m only going off of what I can feel, but the air is thick with distress and loss and anger just by being in the memory. I can’t imagine the intense emotions going through his heart at the moment.

And that was the reason why he wasted no time in attacking.

When Achilles steps back, Tristan emerges from his hiding place, now a full-grown Rogue. His eyes are bright red, his claws stretched and his mouth wide open, ready to sink his teeth into Achilles. Achilles turns around and catches sight of the Rogue just in time, but instead of defending himself, he runs over to me and covers me with his body. Tristan proceeds to smash his head against the rocks, but the scream I let out makes him freeze.

“STOP!”

That’s when he realizes it. Tristan shifts back into his wolf form. He’s following my orders. Now he knows what I am. He knows what we both are. I watch as his gaze turns from angry to fascinated….

“Now you know what happened.”

The sudden clear male voice makes me flinch. I turn around, and that’s when I see the real Tristan standing behind me.

I try to wake up. I try to snap out of it. But I no longer hear Aristea's voice. I can no longer move. I'm stuck here now, and he's approaching me leisurely as though he knows I have nowhere to go.

Tristan smiles. “Didn’t the old lady warn you not to go too far? How will you get out now?”