Lahat ng Kabanata ng The cursed mate's return : Kabanata 131 - Kabanata 140

Freya's pov “Don’t light another fire,” Rowan said quietly, rolling his cloak and slinging it over his shoulder. “We’ve drawn enough attention already.”Mira raised an eyebrow. “So we just walk back into the world cold and hungry?”“Yes,” he said. “Preferably unnoticed.”“Too late for that,” Finnick muttered, rubbing at the side of his head like it still ached. “I can feel it watching us. Still. Like something left its eyes behind.”Kye stood a few feet from me, arms crossed, gaze on the trees like he expected them to reach out and pull us back into the Hollows. “It’s not watching,” he said. “It’s waiting.”I tightened the strap on my pack. “Then we don’t give it a reason to follow.”No one argued.We left the edge of the Hollows behind in silence, each step pulling us further from the place where everything had split and shifted but the distance didn’t matter. I could feel the weight of what I’d done like a hollowness in my chest. Where the memory had been, there was only quiet now.

Freya's pov Talia was still asleep when I woke, curled tightly beneath Mira’s cloak, the pendant now tucked inside my satchel. I hadn’t dreamed, but the weight of the other me—the girl with white hair, the one who’d paid the price—clung to me like frost.Outside, the dawn was pale and unwilling.Kye was already up, crouched by the doorway, sharpening his blade with the kind of focus that looked like distraction. He didn’t speak when I stepped out, just passed me half of a dried ration and nodded toward the rising sun.“How long do you think we have?” I asked, keeping my voice low.“Before whatever came through finishes what it started?” he asked, glancing sideways. “Not long.”We stood in silence, the kind that wasn’t heavy, just honest.Then he added, “Do you regret it?”I turned to him. “The kiss?”His lips quirked slightly. “The choice. To be the one who came back.”I swallowed hard. “I think… I regret not knowing what it cost. Not remembering what I traded for this version of mys

Freya's pov The pendant pulsed again and really weak now, like a dying heartbeat beneath my skin. It was the first time since we found it that the rhythm faltered, and it sent a cold shiver down my spine. Kye’s fingers tightened around mine, anchoring me to this moment, this fragile peace that threatened to slip away like smoke.“We can’t wait,” I said. “The rift might be closed, but it’s not sealed. Not for good.”Kye’s jaw clenched. “Then we find the source. We end it, once and for all.”I nodded, feeling a fierce, raw determination rise inside me. The battle we’d fought was only the beginning. Something darker was stirring beneath the surface of this world, beneath the thin veil of quiet that had settled.We set off before dawn, following the pendant’s faint glow. It led us through tangled forests where shadows clung like cobwebs, the air thick with the scent of ash. The trees whispered secrets, their branches clawing at the sky as if desperate to tear open the heavens and spill f

Freya's pov The explosion wasn’t fire but not entirely.It was sound like pressure. Time itself was folding like glass under a scream.I hit the ground, my vision blinding white, my ears ringing like I was standing in the center of a collapsing star. Somewhere through the chaos, I heard Kye roar not with pain, but fury the kind of fury that came from fear.“KYE!” I screamed, reaching blindly through the heat and ash.He found me somehow, always his arms locking around my waist, dragging me behind one of the fractured temple columns just as a second wave tore through the chamber. The masked stranger didn’t move. He walked through the wreckage like it was wind, the twin pendant at his chest glowing brighter with every step.“You’re not real,” I gasped, pressing my back to the stone. “You’re not meant to exist.”He tilted his head, the bone mask catching the light like a skull. “Neither are you. You should have died on the first path. But something... changed.”I gritted my teeth. “I

Freya's povThe wind howled like a wounded beast. The earth beneath me cracked in jagged lines, black tendrils clawing skyward from the rift. I couldn’t move. Not really. My body was trembling too hard, every part of me still raw from being ripped out of the in-between. Kye’s arms held me together more than my own will did.But I saw him.The mask was gone. I hadn’t realized how much I’d depended on that fragile layer of anonymity, how I’d convinced myself there was a stranger behind the cruelty. A monster. Something other. It was easier to fight what you didn’t recognize.But the face staring up at me from the broken world below wasn’t a stranger.It was me.Worn. Hollowed. Older, somehow — not in years, but in pain. My own eyes stared back, ringed with shadow, teeth bared in a scream of anguish that shattered the air around us.“No,” I whispered, already shaking my head. “That’s not—he’s not me. That’s not me.”But the bond didn’t lie. I felt it, ancient and broken, like two magnets