His Bride, Her Revenge

Chapter 137: The Edge of Loyalty

The wind howled outside the war tent as if echoing the storm that raged inside Cambria’s chest.

"They’ve taken the Citadel," Evelyn said flatly, voice void of emotion.

Cambria’s heart paused. "You’re certain?"

Knox stepped forward from the shadows, blood streaking his torn shirt. "I saw it myself. The banner of the Crimson Regime flies over our mother’s keep. The Pandora Units tore through our defenses like paper."

Evelyn didn’t flinch. "And Maddox?"

Cambria’s eyes flickered to her. She hadn’t heard Maddox’s name in over two days. Not since he’d left with a dozen elite knights to defend the southern passage.

"Missing," Knox replied grimly. "Or dead."

"No." Cambria’s voice was sharp, steel in her spine. "He’s not dead. I would feel it."

Evelyn’s gaze snapped to her. "You still believe that kind of connection exists?"

"I do," Cambria said, jaw clenched. "Because if I stop believing in that, I become exactly like her."

Her. Seraphine Vale. The woman who had created Pandora. The queen who had traded empathy for power, loyalty for control. The ghost that haunted every step Cambria took.

Evelyn turned her back, walking to the tent flap. "We need to retreat north to Ironwatch. If we lose that pass, we’re trapped."

"No," Cambria said, pacing. "If we retreat now, we send a message that we’re broken. That we’ve given up. That we’ve lost the will to fight. I won’t give them that satisfaction."

"Then what do you propose?" Knox asked. "Half our forces are gone. The Shadow Guard is fractured. The Black Watch won’t answer your summons. And Subject One is still out there hunting."

Cambria turned to the map table and dragged her dagger across the borderlines. Her mind moved faster than the conversation around her. For every strike they suffered, she forced herself to see a path forward.

"We draw them in," she said. "We make them think Ironwatch is our stronghold. We feed them bad intelligence, show them movement "

"You want to bait them?" Evelyn interrupted.

"Yes. And then we crush them. Here." She stabbed her dagger into the heart of the Whispering Fields. "We know the terrain. We have the advantage in the fog."

"You’re talking about using the Mist of the Forgotten," Knox said. "We’d be weaponizing the ancient curse."

"I don’t care," Cambria hissed. "They’ve taken too much from us. I will not watch another home fall."

A tense silence fell.

Then Evelyn spoke. "And what if Seraphine releases the final phase of Pandora? What if the ’Protocol’ activates?"

Cambria looked at her. "Then we end her before she can."

The three of them stood there, each weighed down by the choices that lay ahead.

Outside, soldiers rallied. Orders were barked. War drums beat like a second heartbeat.

But none of them felt as heavy as the silence between the siblings.

Later That Night

Cambria sat alone in her chamber what remained of it. Her armor lay discarded, streaked with ash and dried blood. Her hand trembled as she unrolled the letter that had arrived with a broken arrow shaft. There were only four words written on it:

"Don’t trust the Queen."

Her breath caught.

The seal on the letter was unmistakable Maddox’s ring sigil.

He was alive.

And he was warning her.

But which queen?

Evelyn?

Seraphine?

Or... herself?

The candlelight flickered as doubt crawled through her mind.

At the Edge of Ironwatch

Knox stood on the battlements, watching the night bleed into a horizon of fire. His face was taut, eyes scanning every shadow. He had made a choice that Cambria would not approve of.

"Are they ready?" he asked.

From behind him, a cloaked figure nodded. "The pact is made. The Forsaken are mobilizing."

Knox turned. "Tell them... she cannot know. Not yet."

The figure bowed and vanished into the dark.

Knox clenched his fist. He hated secrets. Hated hiding things from his sister. But the threat they faced wasn’t just Pandora, or Seraphine, or even betrayal within the court.

It was something darker. Something ancient.

He had seen it in the ruins beneath Blackmoor. Something the world had forgotten or chosen to forget.

He remembered the writing etched into the stone: "When the Queen of Ashes rises, the world will burn in her wake."

Cambria had survived the God Engine.

She had risen from death.

But what had she become?

Meanwhile, In the Depths of the Forgotten Lab

Evelyn stood before a glass tank. Inside floated a figure her face identical to Cambria’s, but her eyes were void of soul.

"Is it ready?" Evelyn asked.

The engineer beside her, trembling, nodded. "Yes, my lady. Subject Zero is complete."

Evelyn’s mouth curled into something between a smirk and a prayer.

"Then begin the awakening sequence. If Cambria can’t survive what’s coming, then I will replace her with someone who can."

Cambria’s Vision That Night

She stood in a field of ash. All around her, voices whispered her name.

When she looked down, her hands were covered in blood.

A child stood before her, crying.

Cambria knelt. "Who are you?"

The girl’s eyes turned black. "I am the price you must pay."

Suddenly, fire engulfed the horizon.

She turned and saw Seraphine, laughing on a throne made of bone.

"You were never meant to win, child," the queen said.

Cambria screamed and woke in a cold sweat.

She wasn’t alone.

At the foot of her bed, Maddox stood.

Bruised. Bleeding. Alive.

But his eyes... they were hollow.

"Cambria," he said, voice ragged. "We’ve been played. All of us. You need to hear the truth before it’s too late."

A horn sounded in the distance long, low, and ominous.

It was the signal of the final march.

Pandora’s last phase had begun.

But worse Subject Zero had awakened.

And she looked exactly like Cambria.

As the final echoes of the explosion faded into a haunting silence, Cambria staggered to her feet, the metallic scent of blood thick in the air. Smoke curled around her, wrapping the ruined throne room in a veil of shadows. Evelyn was gone, swallowed by the blast or dragged into the void by the unstable portal that had torn through reality moments ago. The only thing left was the locket Evelyn had always worn, now charred and cracked on the floor.

Cambria bent down, her fingers trembling as they closed around it. The locket opened with a soft click. Inside was a photograph, faded and burned around the edges, of two children. One was unmistakably Evelyn. The other was Cambria.

But Cambria had no memory of the photo.

A cold hand gripped her shoulder.

She spun around.

Lucien stood there, barely alive, his chest heaving with ragged breaths, his arm burned and bleeding, but his eyes—those eyes—were still full of secrets.

"You were never meant to see that," he rasped.

"What is this?" she asked, lifting the photo. "Why am I in this? Why do I not remember this?"

Lucien didn’t answer. Instead, he raised a trembling hand toward the shattered stained-glass window, where the skyline of Blackvale had turned a strange shade of crimson. "Because your memories were rewritten. To protect you."

"From what?" she whispered.

But before he could answer, the ground beneath them trembled violently. A low hum rose in the air, like the sound of a thousand wings beating in unison. Outside, the skies began to crack, literally crack, as if the heavens were made of glass and something far older, far darker, was trying to break through.

Cambria looked up, heart racing. And then she saw it, an eye, massive and ancient, staring down through the fissures in the sky.

It blinked.

Lucien fell to his knees, eyes wide. "It’s waking up," he said. "The true architect of Project Pandora. The one even Evelyn feared."

Cambria backed away, the locket still clenched in her fist, the storm of memories unraveling like a tidal wave in her mind. noveldrama

And then a voice echoed, not in the air, but inside her skull.

"Hello, Cambria. Do you remember me now?"

The voice was hers.

But it wasn’t.

It was the original Cambria.

The version of her was buried long ago.

The one Project Pandora was built to contain.

And she was no longer sleeping.

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