Chapter 299

• Elysia
• The aisle stretched longer than I remembered from the rehearsal, lined with faces that represented every chapter of the life I'd fought so hard to reclaim.
• Silas stood near the front, prepared to deliver the Elder blessing with the same quiet gravity he brought to every significant occasion. Carson sat beside Bella, close enough that their hands rested together without either of them quite acknowledging it, a détente neither forced nor fully spoken but entirely real. Calden and Cameron sat together further back, present fully as brothers rather than enablers, their applause when I passed genuine rather than performed.