Chapter 27

Raeve attacks Kaan with a blade, mistaking him for someone else, then retreats to the washroom in shock upon recognizing him. There, she reveals a fragmented memory: that Elluin loved Kaan with all her heart, despite having bound herself to his brother. Kaan realizes Elluin's earlier message was a protective lie, and he grapples with the painful contradiction of her love and her choice.

Kaan sits calmly as Raeve holds a blade to his throat, her pupils dilated and her eyes vacant with what he recognizes as a failure to identify him. When he speaks his name, the hardness drains from her face and she flees to the washroom in apparent horror. Kaan follows her there and finds her gripping the stone basin, scratching at her ravaged nails in distress. When he attempts to comfort her, Raeve asks if he remembers Elluin binding herself to someone else. Kaan's heart stops, fearing this is the moment she will voice words that confirm his inadequacy. Instead, Raeve tells him through trembling lips that Elluin loved him with all her heart. Kaan recognizes the statement as fragmentary memory—Raeve claims to recall only a fleeting feeling, but her closed body language betrays that she remembers more. He leads her back to the pallet, where she lies facing away from the window in uncharacteristic silence. As Kaan holds her close and sings, he wrestles with the realization that Elluin's earlier message to him was a protective lie: she loved him yet returned to bind herself to his brother, and Kaan cannot fathom why she would choose such a path unless she was protecting him from something worse.