All Chapters of Marked By Two: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Aria’s POV“If she survived… then where is she?”Max didn’t answer immediately. That silence terrified me more than anything else tonight.I stood frozen in the middle of the archive room, staring at him while my entire world came apart piece by piece. My mother was alive. Or she had been. Which meant every grave I cried beside, every nightmare, every lonely year believing I had nobody left… it had all been built on another lie.“Say something,” I whispered.Max looked exhausted suddenly. “I don’t know where she is now.”“You don’t know?” I laughed weakly, tears slipping down my face. “You expect me to believe that? You know everything, Max.”“I knew where she was once.”“Then where?”His jaw tightened.“She disappeared before I could reach her.”“Before you could reach her?” My voice cracked. “Or before you could use her too?”Something dark flashed across his face.“You think I’m the villain in every version of this story now.”“I don’t know what you are anymore.”That hurt him. I

Aria’s POVFor one horrible second, nobody moved.Luca stood by the open door staring up at me with wide curious eyes, one tiny hand still gripping the handle while rainwater dripped softly from the edge of my coat onto the marble floor.Behind him, the entire room had gone silent.I looked past the child slowly.Elena froze first. The color drained from her face so fast it almost frightened me. Her lips parted slightly like she couldn’t decide whether she was seeing a ghost or a disaster walking through the front door.Noah went completely rigid beside the fireplace.Cassian looked almost amused at first… until he recognized me properly.Then the amusement vanished. Just like that. The whiskey glass paused halfway to his mouth.Nobody spoke.And suddenly every memory I had buried under years of survival came rushing back so violently it nearly knocked the breath out of me.This house. This cursed fucking house.The grand staircase where Maeve smiled in my face before betraying me.Th

Aria’s POVI stared at the bracelet for so long my vision started to blur. The silver chain rested against the pillow like someone had placed it there carefully. Recently.My chest tightened painfully as I crossed the room slowly. My fingers trembled when I picked it up.I remembered this bracelet. My mother wore it every single day.As a child, I used to play with the tiny moon charm hanging from it whenever she held my hand. I used to spin it between my fingers while she laughed softly and told me I would break it one day.But I never did. Because after the fire… after the screaming and blood and smoke…It disappeared with her. My throat closed painfully.I looked around sharply like I expected another ghost to appear from the walls. There was nothing, only silence.I walked toward the wardrobe slowly and opened it. Clothes still hung inside. Not all of them, but enough.A cream sweater I used to wear constantly during winter. Old dresses. Shoes lined neatly underneath.Who kept all

Aria’s POVI didn’t sleep after the ballroom.I tried.God, I tried.But every time I closed my eyes, I saw the Grand Luna sitting beneath the moonlight whispering the same sentence over and over again.Your mother begged us not to let you remember.The words hollowed something out inside me.By three in the morning, the estate felt dead silent again. I sat curled against the window seat in my old bedroom with the bracelet wrapped tightly around my wrist, staring out at the dark gardens below while my thoughts tore themselves apart.Nothing made sense anymore.I kept asking myself the same horrible question:What if they weren’t hiding me because they hated me?What if they were hiding me because they were afraid?A cold chill crawled down my spine. I stood abruptly and started pacing the room.“No,” I whispered to myself.No.I refused to become one of those weak terrified girls trapped inside their own head.I needed air.I moved toward the door quietly and stepped into the hallway

Aria’s POVThe city looked different before sunrise and empty in a way that made every decision feel irreversible.I sat in the back of the taxi gripping my coat tightly around myself while streetlights blurred past the window in streaks of gold and gray. The note rested inside my pocket beside the bracelet, both of them feeling heavier with every passing minute.And somehow they had been enough to drag me out into the dark like a desperate child chasing ghosts.The abandoned building stood near the edge of the old industrial district across the city, surrounded by empty warehouses and rusted gates. The driver looked at me strangely when I asked him to stop there.“You sure?” he asked carefully.No.But I nodded anyway.The taxi disappeared seconds after I stepped onto the empty street, leaving me alone with the sound of distant traffic and the cold morning wind.Every instinct screamed at me to leave. Instead, I walked toward the building.The entrance door hung slightly open already