"Ashriel… are you okay?"
The words slipped from my lips in a broken whisper, barely audible even to my own ears. My throat felt painfully tight, raw and burning, not only from the bruises Irene had left the night before, but from something far deeper and more devastating now lodged inside my chest like a shard of ice.
Ashriel Tavien had just lied to my face.
Not in private. Not in some shadowed corner. But openly, calmly, and without hesitation in front of everyone. And somehow, that betrayal cut deeper than I ever wanted to admit. He owed me nothing. I knew that. He had saved me last night from Irene's grasp, and technically he could have walked away afterward without another word or glance. But this?
This felt personal. Cruel. Unnecessary.
He shouldn't have lied like this. Not when I knew... knew, what I had seen with my own eyes. That single thread of certainty was the only thing still keeping me upright on legs that threatened to give out beneath me.
I knew what I saw.
