Arthav had left early for work, and now sitting across from her mother-in-law at the same long breakfast table made Reiha’s head feel strangely light.
The silence between them felt uncomfortable and heavy.
Kiara only looked at her but said nothing.
Reiha no longer knew what to believe anymore.
Not about Kiara.
Not about Arthav.
Not even about the vision she had seen with her own eyes.
Because this morning, Arthav had looked painfully normal.
Calm.
Composed.
As if nothing unnatural had happened the night before.
As if his eyes had not split apart beneath the moonlight.
If she believed Kiara’s words, then some ancient curse was slowly awakening inside the Advani bloodline.
But if she believed Arthav… then Kiara was merely a grieving woman still trapped inside the madness left behind by her dead husband.
Yet even if she ignored both their words—
What Reiha saw in Arthav’s eyes last night still haunted her thoughts.
“Was it an illusion?”
“A trick of fear?”
“Or had her own mind created something that never truly existed?” she thought,
“What are you thinking so deeply about?” Kiara asked suddenly, cutting through her thoughts.
Reiha got startled slightly.
She had been so lost inside her own head that she hadn’t even realized Kiara was watching her. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“W-Who? Me?”
“It’s clearly written on your face,” Kiara replied calmly before taking a bite of her toast.
“You’ve been thinking about something ever since morning.”
Reiha hesitated for a moment.
“Did you see Arthav this morning?” she finally asked quietly.
“He looked… completely normal.”
“No. He left before meeting me.” Kiara slowly placed the toast back onto the plate.
“How did he look? Is he fine? Does his arm still hurt?”
“He looked fine,” Reiha answered slowly.
“The veins on his arm were gone too.”
Something shifted in Kiara’s expression.
Her hands resting on the chair suddenly turned cold.
“That doesn’t feel right,” she whispered faintly.
Reiha’s brows pulled together slightly.
“The way Adhiraj searched for a way to stop this curse…” Kiara’s gaze lowered somewhere distant.
“Nothing about it was normal. He used to spend entire days locked inside that study like a madman… searching through the dust of those old books.”
Silence settled between them for a second.
Then Kiara spoke again quietly.
Reiha looked at her instantly.
“And according to him…” Kiara’s eyes slowly lifted toward Reiha.
“He found someone from that same bloodline. And he was about to perform a ritual to undo the curse for good.”
Kiara sighed and looked at her with cold eyes.
“But he died before he could do anything.” She stood up from the other side of the table and walked towards her with merciless eyes; Kiara grabbed her jaw tightly. This chapter was taken from novelping . com without permission.
“In this chaos…” Kiara whispered shakily, “I almost forgot who you are… and whose blood runs through your veins.”
Her nails dug harshly into Reiha’s skin.
Reiha immediately pulled Kiara’s hand away from her face.
Kiara scoffed at her and left the dining area.
Reiha shook her head.
“I forgot that too—that you hate me the most in this world.”
After Kiara left, Reiha also walked out of the dining hall.
“How could I forget that both she and her son hate me?” she muttered under her breath while walking through the corridor.
“She married her son only to make my life miserable. God knows what she even wants from me.”
Still mumbling to herself, she walked toward the garden.
A few servants were clearing away the burnt remains of the rose bushes.
Reiha’s gaze slowly fell upon that same devilish bush standing at the center of the garden.
Shining in the sunbeam,
Unburned.
Reiha stared at it silently.
“Arthav can say whatever he wants,” she whispered softly.
“But I think that the curse might be real. If it wasn’t…” she sighed deeply.
“This bush would’ve burned to ashes like the rest of them.”
Her fingers curled slightly beside her.
“And whatever I saw in his eyes last night… that was not an illusion either.”
With restless thoughts clouding her mind, Reiha walked back inside the mansion.
She decided to search for Adhiraj’s study.