The words were directed at Tianlong, who had apparently materialized near the ceremonial platform without Chen noticing. But it wasn't the question that made Chen's world tilt on its axis.
It was the voice.
The same gentle cadence he remembered from childhood lullabies. The same slight accent from her homeland kingdom. The same warmth that had once made him feel safe and loved.
His mother's voice.
Coming from the otherworldly beauty who had just tried to kill him, evident from the killing intent alone.
Chen's bronze eyes widened in shock as he slowly turned to look at the woman again, his mind struggling to reconcile what he was seeing with what he was hearing.
"How?" The word escaped his lips as barely a whisper as his gaze bounced between the impossible woman and Tianlong's smirking face.
The woman—his mother, somehow, impossibly—was looking at him now with eyes like liquid starlight. Her beauty was undimmed by proximity, if anything more stunning up close.
