Chapter 11: The Cruelty Of Faith

Eva staggered back, her breath ragged.

She knew now. She understood.

The curse had never been Lucien's doing.

She had been the one to create it.

All the deaths. All the rebirths. She had been running from herself.

Her vision swam as another memory slammed into her like a knife to the chest.

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The Origin of the Curse

A throne room carved from obsidian. A past long buried.

Eva—no, not Eva, but the thing she had been before.

A queen, a ruler, a god.

Lucien knelt before her, his body trembling. He had loved her, and she had loved him.

But love had not been enough.

"You are not meant to exist," she had whispered, pressing her hand to his chest.

Lucien's eyes had burned—not with hatred, but with sorrow.

"Then neither are you."

And with one final spell, one final act of cruelty, they had doomed each other.

A curse that would bind them through lifetimes.

A curse that would force them to find and lose each other, over and over again.

Because they could not exist without the other.

And they could not be together.

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Eva crashed back into the present, gasping.

Lucien was still watching her.

Waiting.

"You knew," she whispered, her voice raw. "You knew all along."

Lucien exhaled slowly. "Of course I did."

Her hands shook.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Lucien took a step closer, and for the first time, she saw his true form.

The glamour fell away.

His body flickered, shifting between man and monster.

Golden eyes burning. Shadows curling around his form like something half-forgotten, half-alive.

"Because every time I told you—" Lucien's voice was quiet, resigned.

"You always chose to kill me."

Eva's heart shattered.

Because deep down, she knew he was right.

And now… she would have to choose again.

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