Dorian had always known that bracelet mattered. He ensured it mattered.

That day, that day she breathed her last... after the rain had finally eased and the world smelled of wet earth and something disturbingly final, he had arrived too late. He was not there with her as she died, as he wished for.

And more importantly... The ring was gone.

The signet ring he had placed on her finger, the one that marked her as his, that declared to the world she belonged to him... That ring had vanished without a trace.

Only the bracelet remained, where she breathed her last. He picked it up wondering how it got there. And yet... it had felt wrong in his hands. Heavy with something he couldn’t name.

He felt her in that bracelet. So he had taken it.

And he had gone to the seer.

He could still remember her voice—low, layered, as though it echoed from somewhere beyond the present.

"What is bound by will can be broken," she had murmured, her pale eyes fixed on the bracelet. "But what is bound by truth... will find its way across lifetimes."

Dorian hadn’t understood it fully then.

He hadn’t needed to.

"Keep it," she had said, her fingers brushing the metal lightly. "Let it rest between worlds. When the time comes, it will seek her... and in seeking her, it will guide you back to what is yours."

That had been enough.

He had trusted her. Of course, he had.

Because the idea fit perfectly into what he already believed; that Katerina would return to him. That whatever had been twisted in that life would be set right in the next.

So he preserved it carefully and patiently, certain that when the time came, the bracelet would do its part. That it would lead him back to her... and bring her back to him.

The rest of his life had been nothing more than waiting.

He never gave her place to another woman. The throne beside his... the throne of the Queen of Velmont remained hers in name, untouched. The women who came and went meant nothing but temporary distractions, bodies to fill empty space, and nothing more.

None of them were her. None of htem looked at him like she had, even when she was not pleased with him, and he knew he had hurt her.

And when his end came...

When his own son raised a hand against him, when the blade pierced through his chest as he lay defenseless, he had only looked at the man with something almost like indifference.

He had protected that child. Even at times, to the detriment of Katerina. He had given him everything. And still, betrayal came.

But even then... Dorian had not felt regret as he squeezed the life out of his firstborn as he bled out.

Because this life had never been the end. It had always been a passage to the next. He was going to meet her again.

A new life. A clean beginning. No father-in-law pulling strings. No heirs clawing for power. No court to corrupt what was his.

Just Katerina.

Katerina, who had been loyal until the end—until Maximilian twisted her, turned her, took her away.

But that wouldn’t matter... because, she wouldn’t remember. She would come to him as she was meant to. And like the last time, he would be the first to claim her.

And everything would finally be right.

And yet...

His jaw tightened.

Something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Because somehow... Maximilian had reached her first, just like before. Just like in that cursed life.

How?

How had he found her again?

How had she ended up beside him, looking at him not with hatred, not with resistance, but with something else entirely?

Something Dorian refused to name.

His fingers curled slowly into his palm.

That bracelet... was supposed to bind her path to him. It was supposed to lead her back. So why— Why was she with Maximilian? Why did it feel like she was the one slipping further away?

No.

His gaze darkened, something cold and unyielding settling into place.

She wasn’t choosing Maximilian. She couldn’t be. Not after everything. Not after him. Something was wrong. Something was controlling her. Something was keeping her there.

And if that something was the bracelet... or if it was Maximilian... Then he would tear it apart piece by piece if he had to.

Because one truth remained, unshaken in his mind... Katerina was his. And whatever stood between them... would not survive.

"What kind of curse did you put in that bracelet?"

Charlotte’s voice pulled him back, but Dorian did not answer.

He had asked the seer once, long ago. The words she spoke had been strange, layered with meanings he did not care to untangle. He had never been interested in the mechanism, only the outcome. She had told him that what was bound in truth would find its way across lifetimes, that what belonged to him would return, that she would remain by his side whether she desired it or not.

That last part had stayed with him, not because he doubted her love, but because he did not trust the world to leave it untouched.

And so he had believed.

His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to the last dinner he had shared with her. His chest tightened.

Bash had already been poisoned by then. The animal had fought until the very end, even as the toxin consumed him, lunging forward with a loyalty that bordered on madness. It had almost amused him in another time, the way a mere beast had chosen her over survival, but that night there had been no space for amusement.

Katerina had been inside, preparing the table.

She had not smiled when he went in.

That absence had spoken louder than anything else.

He had already begun to suspect her by then. Ever since that night he had sent her to Maximilian, something had shifted. He had told himself it was necessary, that it was strategy, that she was nothing more than a piece to be moved, but the moment she returned, there had been something in her eyes that refused to settle back into place.

He could not accept that she had given herself to another man, even if he had orchestrated the situation himself.

From that moment on, he had watched her more carefully.

She had been getting closer to the truth, moving with a quiet determination that made him uneasy. Her grief had sharpened her, and her hatred had given her direction. She was tracing every step that led to their son’s death, and in doing so, she had begun to circle around him.

At the table that night, she had barely spoken.

But her eyes had.

He could still see them, even now.

Empty, yet burning. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Accusing without words.

He had known then that the moment she spoke, she would say it. She would tell him she knew. She would tear apart the fragile illusion he had maintained, the one that allowed him to stand beside her as though he had not watched, as though he had not chosen stillness over action.

He had not allowed that moment to come.

His fists clenched slowly, the skin breaking under the pressure as blood welled between his fingers, but he did not seem to notice.

He told himself, even now, that he had done what was necessary. That she had forced him into that corner. That if she had simply let it go, if she had allowed the grief to pass, if she had chosen him over the truth, none of it would have happened.

But he knew her.

Those eyes would never have softened.

They had haunted him for months before that night, appearing in his dreams with a clarity that left him restless and raw. Even when he had been far from her, they followed him, filled with a hatred that felt endless, with a promise that she would destroy everything that had touched her son’s death.

He had tried to turn it against her, to make her doubt herself, to make her believe she had a hand in it, but she had not broken. She had been certain of her innocence, and that certainty had only made her more dangerous.

He loved her.

That was the truth he clung to.

He loved her too much to watch her look at him that way.

And so, that night, after dinner, he had chosen.

The memory tightened around him like a vice, but he did not move away from it.

Charlotte’s voice cut through again, steady this time, grounded in something colder.

"You killed her."

The words did not come as an accusation thrown in anger. They settled instead, heavy and deliberate.

Dorian stilled, but he did not look at her.

Charlotte continued, her tone quieter, almost reflective, as though she were piecing together something that had finally made sense.

She had only understood it recently. That day, when her blade had pierced Maximilian instead of Katerina, she had seen it too late. Katerina had already been dying. There had been blood at her nose, at her mouth, staining her lips without any visible wound to justify it. It had not been the injury that ended her.

It had been something else.

Something already inside her.

"You poisoned her."

The conclusion settled into the space between them with an eerie certainty.

Dorian remained silent.

For the first time in a long while, it did not feel like silence he controlled.