Chapter 33 · Mirror Image

"Get your hands off me, you fake little bitch!"

The voice didn't just hit my ears—it ripped through my skull. A jagged blade of sound that made my teeth ache.

I was pinned. Cold marble pressed against my cheek, grit digging into my skin. Above me, she looked exactly like me. Same wide eyes. Same sharp jaw. Same desperate, starving hunger in the gaze. But her frequency was different. This wasn't a hack. It was raw. Royal. Suffocating.

"Sloane!"

Kael’s voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a pool.

I tried to push up, but the air had turned to lead. The woman—the *real* Sloane, or whatever the hell she was—slammed her heel down on my wrist.

I gasped. The smell of old ozone and burnt sugar filled my nose as her heel ground into my bone.

"Look at him," she sneered, tilting her head toward Kael. "The High Guard. The loyal dog. Tell me, Kael, does it feel weird? Sleeping next to a ghost? Touching a shell that smells like me but has none of my soul?"

Kael didn't move. He stood frozen, sword half-drawn, his face a mask of horror. "I didn't know...