<h4>Chapter 701: THE WRAITH</h4>
The moment stretched, trembling on the edge of something unreal.
My mother stared at me as though I were a ghost pulled from the depths of her own memory. Her hand tightened instinctively around Aiden’s frozen fingers, and for the first time since the world had stopped breathing, she looked afraid.
"Jasmine?" she asked again, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "What are you doing here?"
The sound of my name on her lips shattered something in me.
"I.... I don’t know," I said, my voice shaking. "I think... I think I’m dreaming. I’ve dreamt of you before. More than once."
Her brows knit together slowly, confusion turning sharp, alert.
"This isn’t a dream," she said carefully. "Not yours, at least."
The words slid down my spine like ice.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
She nced around us.
The figures, the suspended light, the paused moment of her life and then looked back at me.
"You’re standing inside my memory," she said. "This already happened. Every word. Every choice."
My breath caught painfully in my throat.
"That’s not possible," I whispered.
"And yet here you are," she replied softly.
A chill settled deep in my bones.
"I wasn’t supposed to see you," I said suddenly, panic rising. "I was told that if I did... if I kept seeing you... you might be a wraith."
The word felt wrong in my mouth. Poisoned.
Her expression changed instantly.
Shock shed across her face, raw and unguarded.
"A wraith?" she echoed. "Who would tell you something like that?"
I hesitated.
Her eyes widened slightly, something like recognition dawning.
"...Aiden," she said.
It wasn’t a question.
I took an instinctive step back, my heart hammering.
Her gaze flicked to him, still frozen mid breath, and then back to me.
"No," she said firmly. "No, Jasmine. I am not a wraith."
I wanted to believe her.
Gods, I wanted to.
"There’s only one way you can prove it," I said, my voice trembling despite myself.
She didn’t interrupt.
"There was a song," I continued. "I sing. I don’t know where I know it from. But I believe it’s from you. If you are my mother you would sing it."
Her lips parted.
Then she smiled.
Not wide. Not triumphant.
Just... knowing.
"Of course I know it," she said softly.
She stepped closer, and the air around us seemed to hum, as though the world itself leaned in to listen.
Then she sang.
Her voice was nothing like I remembered sound ever being. It flowed, low and haunting, threaded with something ancient and aching. The words unfurled slowly, carefully, wrapping around me like a tide pulling me home.
Every notended exactly where it was meant to.
Every word was right.
My knees nearly gave out.
Tears streamed down my face unchecked as thest note faded into the frozen air.
"It’s you," I sobbed. "It’s really you."
She opened her arms just as I fell into them.
I clung to her like a child afraid to let go, burying my face against her shoulder, breathing her in warmth, salt, life. She held me just as tightly, her hands trembling as they pressed into my back.
"My baby," she whispered. "I’ve waited so long."
"I thought you were gone," I cried. "I thought I imagined you. I thought something was trying to trick me."
She pulled back slightly, cupping my face.
"I am so sorry," she said. "For everything you’ve endured. For how alone you’ve been."
Iughed weakly through tears. "At least now I know I wasn’t losing my mind."
Her expression softened, but only for a moment.
Then it hardened into something grave.
"Jasmine," she said gently, releasing me. "There’s something you need to understand."
My chest tightened.
"Your father is not who you think he is."
The wordsnded wrong. Crooked.
"I don’t understand," I said quickly. "He’s been kind to me. He protected me. He saved me."
"He was kind," she said quietly. "Once."
Was.
The past tense echoed painfully.
"What happened?" I asked.
Her jaw tightened.
"He found something," she said. "A stone."
My breath caught.
"A stone?"
She nodded. "One that should never have been touched. It carried power meant to create, not to rule. It corrupted him."
I shook my head. "That doesn’t make sense. He told me stories about stones, about bnce.....
He told you what suited him," she interrupted softly. "He was a good man, Jasmine. I loved him. Truly. But corruption doesn’t arrive as cruelty. It arrives as certainty."
The image of the ring shed through my mind.
Jagged.
Red.
Broken.
"I saw it," I whispered. "A ring. With a red stone."
Her eyes widened in rm.
"Oh no," she breathed.
"That’s it, isn’t it?" I asked. "That’s what you’re talking about."
She nodded slowly.
"That stone is cursed," she said. "It doesn’t just twist the mind. It convinces you that everything you do is necessary. That anyone who opposes you is an obstacle."
My head spun.
"That’s why you ran," I said numbly.
"Yes," she replied. "And because I realized what he was bing. I couldn’t raise you in the shadow of that."
"I don’t understand," I whispered again, overwhelmed. "Why now? Why am I seeing all this?"
"Because you’re pregnant," she said. "Because your power is awakening. Because you are standing at the same crossroads I once stood at."
Time was waking.
The frozen people were slowly moving.
"There isn’t much time," she said urgently. "I can’t exin everything. But you must listen to me."
I grabbed her hands. "Then tell me what to do."
"Reach out to Bale," she said. "Your uncle."
I frowned. "Bale? But he....
"He will always choose you," she said firmly. "No matter what he’s done. No matter what he’s be. He loves you."
The room trembled again.
The sound of breath returned.
A gasp.
Aiden’s fingers twitched.
"She’s waking up," my mother said quickly. "This memory can’t hold much longer."
Before I could exin to her that Bale was a monster.
I woke up.