The sea did not move.

  Ren stood knee-deep in still water, staring at the broken silver ring in his palm.

  Half of something.

  Like him.

  “Don’t look so lost, Arnaud.”

  The voice slid across the surface of the ocean.

  He turned.

  She wore Mira’s face.

  Metal rings bound her body — dozens of them — cutting into her skin. Blood traced thin lines down her arms, but it never touched the water.

  It just hung there.

  Waiting.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “I am your eleventh piece,” she said softly.

  “The part you couldn’t bear to keep.”

  Ren’s throat tightened.

  “I don’t know you.”

  She stepped closer.

  On her finger was the other half of the ring.

  It fit perfectly.

  “You promised me,” she whispered.

  “That we would end it.”

  Something flickered in his mind.

  Fire.

  Black snow.

  Hands intertwined.

  “No,” he breathed.

  “I promised to protect her.”

  She smiled.

  “That empty shell?”

  Her fingers brushed his cheek.

  Cold.

  “You cut her out of us because she was weak.”

  Ren shoved her hand away.

  “She chose me.”

  The ring in his palm pulsed.

  Heat spread through the ocean.

  Ripples formed.

  For the first time, the sea reacted.

  “You’re still choosing wrong,” she said.

  The rings around her body began to spin.

  The air screamed.

  The space behind her tore open.

  Something crawled out.

  It wasn’t a machine.

  It wasn’t a monster.

  It was wrong.

  Bodies — Mira’s face repeated over and over — fused together into a massive, distorted beast of gravity and bone.

  Eyes opened across its surface.

  All of them hers.

  Fragments of voices overlapped.

  “…brother…”

  “…don’t…”

  “…why…”

  Ren staggered back.

  The girl standing before him did not look away.

  “This is your weight.”

  The creature moved.

  The sea began to sink.

  Ren tightened his grip on the ring.

  Then—

  Blue light burst upward from the fracture in the silver.

  It pierced the milk-colored sky.

  Far away.

  Beyond the sea.

  A pair of green eyes flickered open.

  “…Ren?”

  The voice wasn’t here.

  But he heard it.

  His right arm ignited again—

  Not black.

  Not gold.

  Something else.

  A new color.

  — End of Chapter 12 —