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Chapter 61
~Valerie’s POV~
Warm air brushed across my face, scented with crushed grass and wild earth. My eyes fluttered open slowly, blinking against the brightness of the sun filtering through a thick canopy of leaves above .
I sat up with a gasp, my palms digging into soft ground—real ground. This wasn’t the synthetic terrain of the simulation do.
This was real. Tangible. I could sll the dew on the grass and feel the faint breeze tickling the hair at my temples.
My heart thudded erratically. This wasn’t part of any program.
I looked around quickly, searching for sothing—anything—that would tell where I was.
A tall ring of grass circled the edge of the clearing, and beyond that, I could see dense trees, towering and familiar in the air.
A glint of silver flickered just beyond the edge of the clearing, catching the light.
I knew this place.
It wasn’t far from the city border. The old evacuation training fields—abandoned for years.
And the silver, my heart jumped.
"Xander?" I called out, scrambling to my feet.
He turned halfway and halted. His silver hair shimred in the light, his expression unreadable. His outfit was scratched, his blade sheathed. But his eyes—they were sharp, calm... and tired.
Relief surged through like a second heartbeat.
I ran to him without thinking.
"Xander!" I stopped a few steps short, breathless. "You’re alright!"
He didn’t say anything at first. His gaze dropped to his hand, where he held a small, cracked gem—its once vibrant blue glow now dulled and flickering.
"Xander," I repeated, stepping closer. "I thought—what happened? What went wrong?"
He finally t my gaze, and when he spoke, he kept his voice low. "The simulations changed. Your environnt glitched, and the attackers weren’t part of the original program."
I frowned. "So it was hacked?"
He didn’t answer that.
"Then how did you find ? How did you even know I needed help? That exact mont—how did you get there?"
"I don’t know," he murmured, his brows furrowing as he turned the gem in his fingers. "I just... felt sothing. I acted."
My mouth went dry. "And the blast? The rune trap—how did we escape that? You saved ... But how did we get here?"
There were so many questions that needed to be asked about Xander and everything that went wrong, but now I couldn’t afford to spook the only help I had outside in this unknown danger zone.
Xander tilted his head slightly, looking almost amused despite the tension in his shoulders. "You ask a lot of questions, Nightshade."
I huffed a shaky laugh, brushing hair from my face. "Forgive . A lot happened in the span of a few minutes. I was about to die in a simulation, which, by the way, is not supposed to be possible. So yeah—pardon the questions."
Xander’s shoulders lowered, and the playfulness vanished.
"That’s not what matters right now," he said quietly. "What matters is why soone tried to kill you under the disguise of a simulation. Soone embedded a fatal rune into the system. That wasn’t a glitch. That was a death trap. It transported you to where they wanted you to be. I was lucky I acted fast and went in too when I did."
I inhaled sharply, his words hitting like a weight to the chest.
"Soone wanted gone," I said, the realization washing over fully. "They tried to erase ."
Xander nodded. "And they nearly succeeded."
I looked down at the gem in his hand again. "Is that how we got out?"
He gave a slow nod. "It cracked after the blast. Must’ve absorbed the final impact. I didn’t think it would even activate. It’s ant to transport two persons to any place of your choice. And it ran its course."
Xander looked down again, his thumb brushing the dull surface of the gem. "I shouldn’t have done it. But I couldn’t leave you."
My throat closed up, but I didn’t let myself get swept up in emotion. Not yet.
"Then whoever did this... they must feel threatened by my presence enough to tailor a simulation designed to kill , with runes ancient enough to bypass a hundred safety layers."
Xander’s eyes darkened. "Which ans we’re not dealing with just a saboteur."
My pulse quickened. "We need to get back. Tell Xade, Isla, the council—everyone."
Xander shook his head. "No. Not yet."
I stared at him. "What? Why not?"
"Because if you show up now, they’ll know you survived. And if they know that..." He looked back toward the tree line, the forest looming beyond. "They’ll try again. Harder. Faster. Next ti, they might not use a simulation."
I clenched my fists. "Then what do we do?"
Xander’s gaze settled on . "We stay hidden for now. We find out who did this. We strike before they get another chance. Or just wait it out like normal individuals."
I nodded slowly, heart thudding. The forest stretched endlessly behind us, quiet, waiting.
And sowhere out there... soone was already planning my funeral.
But I wasn’t dead.
Not yet.
And I wasn’t going down without tearing the truth out of their bones.
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~Xade’s POV~
I stood on the west balcony of the compound, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the now fully locked-down training do in the distance. The sky above it shimred faintly with a containnt field, sealed tight after Valerie vanished.
My chest still burned.
"She’s gone."
Those were the words I’d spoken. But they hadn’t left —not really. They echoed in every breath, every second since. I saw the mont on replay—Valerie, caught in the trap. Xander is reaching for her. The runes exploding like they’d been laced with pure void energy.
And then... nothing.
No trace.
A part of knew she was alive. A part of felt it. But feeling it didn’t make it better. Didn’t make it easier.
Because if she were alive, that ant soone had taken her, and I did not know if that was worse or better at this point.
Still, I couldn’t say anything about it to anyone else apart from us heirs.
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