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Chapter 506
~Snow’s POV~
My throat burned. I wasn’t even sure if it was from rage or heartbreak anymore.
"People don’t fake that kind of love. Not Zara. Not her. She’s not weak. She wouldn’t just run. Sothing’s wrong."
Tempest folded the letter slowly; her expression turned blank. "You think this is... what? A ssage written under duress?"
"I don’t know," I said hoarsely. "But I do know this isn’t the woman I kissed last night."
"She looked calm in the footage," Zade muttered.
"Too calm," I snapped. "Almost like she wasn’t even there and like her body moved, but she wasn’t behind her own eyes."
Aira’s brows creased. "What are you suggesting?"
"I’m saying sothing happened to Zara. And I don’t care what that letter says—she didn’t leave . She wouldn’t. Zara wouldn’t do this, not like that."
Tempest and Aira exchanged a look. I placed my hand flat against the wall, lowering my head.
"She’s scared. Or being watched. Or controlled. I don’t know. But I can feel it—deep down." My voice cracked. "That wasn’t goodbye. That was a cry for help in disguise."
The room was quiet again, filled with tension.
And then I said it, with every ounce of belief I had left:
"She didn’t leave . Not truly. Sothing happened to Zara. And I must find her."
"Then where do we start?"
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~Zara’s POV~
Why am I here?
The thought pushed itself through the fog in my mind like a whisper rising through water.
I blinked slowly, trying to make sense of the cool air brushing across my skin. The dark leather seat beneath . The faint hum of tires on gravel. I was in a car in the back seat. We were moving.
And yet... I didn’t rember getting in.
I tried to move—just a simple turn of my head to look out the window—but my body didn’t respond appropriately.
My neck stiffened, but wouldn’t budge. My hands lay limply in my lap, unmoving like dead weight, and my mouth wouldn’t open.
Panic started to bloom in my chest.
"What’s happening to ?" I asked no one in particular since my lips weren’t moving either.
Then... it all ca back at the sa ti to . The mory wasn’t in flashes or in pieces but all at once, like a wave crashing down on my soul.
When it first started, it began with a voice.
Cold, unfamiliar and sharp like a blade dragged across the inside of my chest.
It had whispered to when I was asleep, when I was warm and safe in Snow’s arms. I
The voice had pierced through the dream, crawling over my mind and threading around my heart like barbed wire. And then, it had spoken.
"Get up." Like a fool, I had done precisely that.
"Walk." I made no hesitation.
"Write the letter."
I had fought it—gods, I had tried—but my body didn’t listen to . I had moved like a puppet. My limbs obeyed the voice and not my own will.
What the hell was going on with ?
And I had written. I had watched as my hand gripped the pen and scrawled every line on that page.
My heart scread as I wrote that I was leaving Snow. It was overwhelming. I rembered Vera. I couldn’t do this anymore.
But then, none of it was true.
Not really.
But my body had made it real.
I rembered walking out of our bedroom. Passing Mila in the kitchen—her wide, innocent eyes blinking at while I gave her nothing but a wave.
The way I couldn’t even whisper for help. Not even then.
I rembered how the wind felt cold against my legs, the sharp edges of grass under my bare feet, and the sll of wet soil as I moved through the garden.
Then the car.
A black car was waiting for . When it saw , its driver was already stepping out as if on cue.
I had reached out, forcing magic through my fingertips—my magic, but bent and controlled—and cloaked the vehicle.
A veil of invisibility wrapped around it like a curtain. A reflex I didn’t understand. One I hadn’t consciously summoned.
And then... I had sat down. Just like now—motionless, breathing, but not living. My body was still, but inside, I was screaming.
A tear escaped the corner of my eye and slid down my cheek. It tickled my skin like a silent betrayal.
I rembered Snow’s sleeping face. How close he was. Just inches away as I had dropped the letter by the door.
I wanted to turn back.
I wanted to cry out his na. To run into his arms and beg him to hold , to see through whatever spell or curse had wrapped itself around .
But my mouth wouldn’t open. My legs wouldn’t stop moving.
And now, here I was—staring ahead at nothing, being taken to gods-know-where, with no control over my path.
The car slowed.
I blinked, trying to fight the numbness creeping through my limbs. I could move my fingers now—just barely. A flick. A twitch. But my legs were still unresponsive.
The engine rumbled into silence as the car ca to a full stop.
The door opened beside . I didn’t see the face of the man who stood there—only his boots on the dried, cracked earth.
Still not speaking, he gestured.
"Out," the voice ca out loud and commanding again. And I stepped out.
My body moved on its own, like muscle mory. I stood barefoot in what looked like a deserted clearing.
There was no grass, just dust and dry soil, surrounded by trees with blackened bark and no leaves. The wind blew sharply against my skin, and I shivered.
"Where... are we?" I tried to ask, but the words didn’t co out.
We walked.
I wasn’t guided by force. I wasn’t bound. But it felt like invisible strings pulled at my limbs, dragging forward step by step.
Then the man stopped.
He raised his hand, whispered sothing in a tongue I didn’t recognise, and the air around us shimred like heat waves before it collapsed.
A ripple echoed outward, a magical ward shattering into nothingness with a low hum.
And right before us stood a tall, thick, unwelcoming black iron gate that looked all too ancient.
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