All Chapters of THE SHADOW BRIDE: Chapter 21 - Chapter 25

(Avery’s Point of View)The air in the room feels heavy, as if the walls themselves are closing in on me. My heart is still racing from what I just read, the words still burned into my mind: Camille is alive. How could she be? The body was identified, buried, mourned. How is it possible that my sister, the one I thought was gone forever, is still out there?Elias doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. He’s standing there, watching me, his eyes dark and distant, like he’s waiting for something to happen. I don’t know what. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, but I feel the need to fill the silence, to demand answers, but I can’t make my voice work. It’s as if the weight of the truth is suffocating me.I look down at the book in my hands again, the pages now closed, but I can still feel the burn of the words on my skin. It’s almost like the book itself is alive, pulsing with an energy that doesn’t belong in this world. My fingers curl into the edges of the cover, and for a moment, I wonder if

There are places beyond mortal comprehension, tucked into the folds of time and space, where the past, present, and future collide in silent, ever-moving currents. These places do not belong to the world you know, to the earth beneath your feet, to the air you breathe. They exist in a liminal state—part of every moment, yet apart from all of them. In these forgotten corners, in the hushed realms where reality stretches thin, the Watcher lingers. It is not a force of nature or a creature bound to the same rules that govern human life. It is something older, something eternal, a silent presence that has existed far longer than any man, woman, or child could understand.The Watcher is a thing of paradox—both guardian and voyeur, keeper and harbinger. It does not interfere in the lives it follows. It does not reach out to intervene in the choices made by those whose paths it crosses. But it is always watching, always witnessing, its attention unblinking. Time is no prison for it, nor is s

The sun dips lower in the sky, casting long shadows across the clearing. The warm hues of twilight reflect off Elias’s face, softening the hard angles that have become so familiar. There’s a stillness in the air now, an unspoken tension that has simmered under the surface of our shared silence. We’re sitting close, our shoulders almost touching, and for the first time in a long time, I’m aware of every detail—the brush of my hair against the cool evening breeze, the soft rustle of leaves around us, the steady rise and fall of Elias’s breath beside me.There’s a quiet between us, but it’s different now. It’s not the uncomfortable silence that usually hangs between us—it’s something deeper. Something fragile, yet palpable.I glance at him from the corner of my eye, my heart beating just a little faster. The tension is undeniable now, a thread pulling taut between us. His gaze is on me too, I can feel it, and it makes me hesitate, unsure of what this moment is, unsure of what it means.H