Her chest tightened. The Codex pulsed once, as if mocking her silence. She stole a glance at Adrian. His broad shoulders were rigid, his stride purposeful, but his storm-gray eyes betrayed a storm brewing beneath his calm façade. He was hiding something. She knew it.
They walked deeper, the corridor curving downward. Veins of obsidian ran along the walls, faintly glowing red, as if the ruins themselves bled. Elena's throat felt dry. Each step was an argument between silence and truth.
Finally, she stopped walking.
"Adrian," she said softly.
He halted, back stiffening, but he did not turn immediately. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword, knuckles pale.
"Cassian said something," Elena pressed, her voice trembling "He said you knew why my family died."
Adrian's jaw flexed. For a long, unbearable moment, the only sound was the dripping of water from the ceiling onto the stone floor. Then, slowly, he turned.
Storm-gray eyes met hers, shadowed, guarded "Elena—"
"Is it true?" Her voice cracked, harsher now, edged with desperation "Tell me."
Adrian closed his eyes briefly, as if summoning the strength to drag buried truth to the surface. When he opened them again, the weight of years rested in his gaze.
"Yes," he said at last. His voice was hoarse, heavy "It's true."
The world tilted beneath Elena. She staggered back, clutching the Codex tighter to her chest "No," she whispered. "No, you're lying.... You have to be lying."
Adrian stepped closer, but stopped when she flinched. His hand lowered slowly to his side, guilt shadowing his expression.
Elena, listen to me. The Order of Thorns—the same Order that hunts us now—killed your family. They burned your home to ashes because they knew what you were because they feared the Codex would choose you."
Her breath hitched. The air around her felt thin, like drowning in nothing. Memories clawed at her mind—her father's laughter in the garden, her mother's lullabies, the flames that devoured everything. She had told herself it was an accident. A cruel twist of fate but this… this was murder.
Tears blurred her vision "And you knew," she whispered, voice breaking "All this time, you knew."
Adrian's throat worked as he struggled with words. "I didn't want you to carry that burden. Not yet.... Not until you were strong enough."
"Strong enough for what?" Elena demanded, her voice trembling with rage and grief "To live with the knowledge that everything I loved was taken because of me?"
His expression tightened "Not because of you because of your bloodline. Elena… your family carried the Rose within them. Fragments of its legacy run through your veins. The Codex chose you because it always would because you were born for it."
The Codex pulsed violently at his words, glowing crimson as if to confirm the truth. Elena felt its energy seep into her skin, its whispers clawing louder. She stumbled back, clutching her head.
"No," she gasped. "I never asked for this. I never wanted this."
Adrian reached for her, desperation flaring in his storm-gray eyes. "I know and that's why I tried to protect you. To shield you from this truth. To carry it alone."
Elena's tears fell freely now, hot and unrelenting "You should have told me," she whispered "You owed me that much."
His face twisted with anguish "I thought I was sparing you."
Her fury cracked under the weight of sorrow. She pressed her hands to her chest, where her heart hammered painfully against her ribs. "And all it did was leave me blind. You let me walk into this with half the truth."
Her words cut sharper than any blade. Adrian lowered his head, shame pulling his shoulders down "You're right."
The silence that followed was jagged, broken only by Elena's quiet sobs. Adrian stood motionless, torn between the need to comfort her and the fear that she would push him further away.
Finally, Elena wiped her eyes with trembling fingers, forcing her voice steady "If we're going to survive this—if we're going to fight them—we can't do it with lies between us."
For a moment, Adrian said nothing. Then, slowly, he sank to one knee before her, not in supplication but in weariness. His hand gripped the stone floor, veins standing out beneath his skin.
"You're right," he whispered. "I've failed you. I told myself I kept the truth from you for your sake but maybe… maybe it was for mine. Because if I spoke it aloud, it would mean reliving my own failures."
Elena blinked through her tears "Failures?"
His gaze lifted, raw and vulnerable. "The Order didn't just take your family. They took mine. My mother.... My brother and I wasn't there to stop them. I was a boy, powerless. And when I finally swore to fight back, to tear them apart piece by piece, I promised myself I'd never let anyone else bear that weight." His voice cracked "Especially you."
Elena's chest tightened. Grief mirrored grief, their sorrows entwining like twin scars.
The corridor stretched endlessly ahead, dark and unyielding. The Codex's glow softened between them, as if sensing their fragile truce. Elena lowered herself to her knees before Adrian, their faces inches apart.
Her voice shook, but her words were steady. "Then stop shutting me out. Stop trying to carry this alone. If you want me beside you, then let me be beside you. Even when the truth hurts."
Adrian's storm-gray eyes searched hers, as though seeking absolution. Finally, he lifted his hand, hesitant and brushed his fingers against her cheek.
"Together then," he whispered.
Elena leaned into his touch, though her tears still fell "Together."
The Codex stirred between them, its pages fluttering though no wind blew. Strange symbols bled across its parchment, glowing with a crimson light that bathed their faces.
Elena gasped as a whisper slid into her mind: Blood knows blood. Secrets are chains. Break them, and the Rose will bloom.
She shivered, clutching the book tighter. Adrian's gaze sharpened "What did it say?"
Her lips parted. For once, she did not hide "It told me the Rose blooms when secrets die."
They exchanged a look heavy with meaning.
Adrian nodded slowly "Then let us bury them here, in this corridor of ash. No more shadows between us."
Elena drew a trembling breath, pressing the Codex to her chest. She felt its power settle, no longer clawing but waiting, patient, like a predator biding its time.
They rose together, their hands brushing as they began to walk again. The silence between them was still fragile, still aching, but it no longer cut like a blade. It was a silence of shared grief, of promises made, of truths too heavy to deny.
Elena's heart was still raw, but beneath the grief stirred something new—a quiet strength, sharp as steel. Adrian walked at her side, his storm-gray eyes watchful, his hand never straying far from his sword but his gaze lingered on her more than the shadows.
They were scarred. They were broken but for the first time, they were honest.
And honesty, Elena realized, was more dangerous than any secret.
The path from the corridor spilled into a hollow chamber where the ceiling stretched high above, riddled with cracks that dripped cold water into shallow pools. The air smelled of soot and damp stone, a mingling of earth and ruin.
Adrian set down his pack near the far wall, where broken carvings of roses still lingered despite centuries of decay. He moved with precision, practiced from years of surviving in hostile places. Firewood, salvaged and carried from the upper ruins, was arranged in a small pile. Soon a flame flickered to life, its orange glow pushing back the shadows.
Elena lowered herself onto a fragment of fallen column. The Codex lay heavy in her lap, its glow muted but insistent, as though aware of her fraying spirit. She stared into the fire, her reflection rippling in its flames.
The silence pressed on her chest, unbearable. Adrian had told her truths that shattered the foundation of her world, and though they had spoken of moving forward, the wound was still raw, open, bleeding.
Finally, Elena's voice broke the stillness "You kept it from me."
The words were not loud, but they cut through the chamber like steel.
Adrian's shoulders stiffened. He did not immediately look at her but she saw his hand pause over the whetstone he had drawn to sharpen his blade. Slowly, he set it aside, his jaw tightening.
"Yes," he said at last, his voice low "I did."
Her chest heaved, fury and grief mingling "Do you understand what that feels like? To learn everything I thought I knew about my family was a lie? That their deaths weren't chance but a choice made by monsters?"
Adrian's gaze finally met hers. The firelight caught in his storm-gray eyes, shadows cutting hard lines into his face "I understand," he said softly.
Elena shook her head, anger flaring "No, you don't.... You can't."
Adrian stood abruptly, pacing toward the carved roses on the wall. His hand brushed over the blackened stone, fingers tracing the outline of a petal. His voice was harsh when he spoke, but beneath it lay sorrow.
"Yes, I can because I lived it too. The Order didn't stop with your family. They hunted mine. They killed my mother—slit her throat in her own garden. They took my brother, dragged him screaming from our home, and when I found him days later, his body was already cold."
Elena's breath caught.
Adrian turned, his expression raw, stripped of his usual control "So don't tell me I don't understand, Elena. I know the pain of watching everything you love reduced to ash. I know the weight of waking every morning with their ghosts in your chest."
The words silenced her anger, if only for a moment. Her hands trembled as she clutched the Codex tighter. His grief mirrored hers, their wounds aligned like twin scars carved by the same blade.