Eleanora

My mother’s eyes were open.

That should have been the moment everything healed, but instead, it cracked something deeper open inside me.

She looked at me as if I were a memory.

“Eleanora…” her voice was soft, trembling. “You look… like her.”

“Like who?” I whispered.

Her gaze shifted behind me, to Liora, her sister. Then to Gannon.

And then… it moved lower.

To the pool.

Her face paled.

“He’s still here,” she said. “You… you woke him too.”

---

The Second Heartbeat

The water beneath my mother began to stir again. Liora turned pale, her hand instinctively going to the dagger at her hip.

Gannon stepped forward. “What...