Chapter 35: A Stranger to Her Own Heart

The silence in the room was suffocating.

Killian knelt beside Ivy, his hand gently brushing the hair from her face. But her eyes—those familiar hazel eyes—looked at him like he was a stranger. Not with fear, but with detachment, as if the thread that once tethered her soul to his had been carefully severed.

“Ivy,” he whispered, barely breathing. “It’s me. Killian.”

She blinked slowly, scanning the room, then looking down at her belly.

“Why… why does it feel like I’m missing something?” she murmured. “Something important.”

Killian swallowed the lump in his throat. “Because you are. You’re missing us.”

She frowned, confusion clouding her features. “Do I know you?”

Before he could answer, a faint shimmer rippled across the cracked mirror. Aiden’s body still lay limp in the corner, the orb of his essence completely drained by Isolde’s possession. Ivy—what remained of her—was whole again, but incomplete in the most devastating way.

She had survived the ritual.

But her love had not.

In the days that followed, Ivy was quiet.

She moved like a ghost through the safehouse, unfamiliar with her surroundings, startled by the smallest sounds. Her pregnancy progressed—too quickly—and though Killian tried to help her remember through old photos, journal entries, and stories, nothing seemed to spark recognition.

Her mind had been wiped clean.

One night, Killian found her standing by the nursery they’d begun setting up. She stared at the bassinet as though it were a foreign artefact.

“Did… did I want this?” she asked without turning around.

“You fought for this,” Killian said gently. “For her.”

Ivy touched her belly and murmured, “Why does that make me so sad?”

He had no answer.

Miles away, hidden within the shattered veil between realms, Isolde emerged from the mirror with a new form—a hybrid of her ethereal essence and Ivy’s discarded emotional shell. She no longer needed a host.

She was reborn.

Her goal was no longer just to torment Ivy or claim Killian.

It was to take what Ivy was destined to bring into the world: the child of prophecy. The one with the blood of a protector and the seed of an ancient power.

Her child.

Isolde began her hunt.

Back at the safehouse, Killian was alone in the living room when a knock echoed through the silence. A single, deliberate knock. Then two. Then three, evenly spaced.

He stiffened.

Only a handful of people knew where they were.

He approached the door cautiously, with a dagger in hand. When he opened it, no one stood outside. But there was something on the floor:

A red ribbon, tied in a perfect bow, and a note written in delicate, ornate handwriting.

“One life takes, life owed.”

He felt the blood drain from his face.

Isolde was back.

And she had set her terms.

That night, Ivy woke in a cold sweat. Not from pain. Not from fear.

But from a memory.

A soft one. Faint.

Killian’s arms around her. A kiss pressed against her forehead. The smell of the sea. Her laughter.

It flickered in her mind like a dying candle flame.

She rushed to the bathroom mirror and stared at her reflection.

“I know you,” she whispered. “Don’t I?”

The reflection smiled back, but it wasn’t her smile.

It was Isolde’s.

The mirror cracked.

Killian, desperate to protect Ivy, reached out to an old ally—Mira, a spirit weaver known for her uncanny ability to trace curses and spiritual bindings. Mira arrived cloaked in salt and moonlit ash.

“She’s not gone,” she said after a few moments in Ivy’s presence. “Part of Isolde lingers still. A remnant. The mirror may have expelled her spirit, but not her shadow.”

“What does that mean?” Killian asked.

“It means Ivy might become a vessel again—willingly. The danger isn’t that she’ll be overtaken. It’s that she’ll let it happen to find her memories.”

Ivy stood behind them, listening.

And she didn’t deny it.

Later that night, Ivy found the cracked mirror alone and knelt before it.

“If you’re in there…” she whispered, “show me. Show me what I lost.”

Isolde’s voice echoed softly, temptingly.

“I can give you everything back. The love. The child’s future. Even Aiden’s death can be undone. All you have to do… is remember.”

Ivy touched the mirror’s surface.

Her memories began flooding back—

The first time Killian held her.

The first flutter of the baby in her belly.

The sound of her own laughter.

Tears split her cheeks.

But the voice turned darker.

“Now, give me what is mine.”

The next morning, Ivy stood before Killian and Mira.

“I remember,” she said, voice shaking. “I remember everything.”

Killian moved toward her, relieved—but Mira’s expression grew grim.

“You touched the mirror,” she whispered.

Ivy nodded.

“I had to.”

Suddenly, her body convulsed. She clutched her stomach and screamed. A black shadow began crawling across her skin.

Mira rushed forward. “She didn’t just touch the mirror. She accepted the deal.”

Isolde’s voice whispered through the wind.

“I’m coming home.”

Killian held Ivy as she screamed, her body glowing with both light and shadow, her womb the battlefield for control. The baby inside kicked violently—as if it were fighting, too.

Mira cast a protective circle around them, but it was already cracking.

“She’s not after Ivy anymore,” Mira said breathlessly. “She wants the child.”

And just as Killian’s blade lit up with ancient fire—

The baby stopped kicking.

Ivy fell silent.

And her eyes opened—

But they glowed gold.