CHAPTER 536: THE MNEMOSYNE CROWN

Ace’s mouth went dry, but he continued reading especially when it came to to the risk part.

Werewolf Physiology:Lupine cortex rebound; scent-blindness (temporary to permanent); dissociation; split-shift episodes; blackouts; aggression spikes. Outcome for human Physiology: brain-dead risk at moderate amplitudes.

Notes:Werewolf neuro-regeneration reduces catastrophic failure probability. Memory "bleed" into adjacent non-target recall clusters expected; can be managed post-procedure with guided re-imprinting.

Ace set the paper down slowly, as if any sudden movements might set off whatever trap he’d just walked into. He tore his eyes from the text and scanned the table and there he saw it.

It was exactly like the sketch. A crown of matte metal and braided leads, petals of mesh overlapping like armored leaves.

The Mnemosyne Crown.

"What are you doing?"

Ace froze and turned slowly. His mother Zara stood in the doorway. The mark on her throat was fading, but the bruise was still there, covered with salve. The herbal scent drifted with her, but her eyes were sharp and cold.

Her gaze slid from Ace’s face to the Mnemosyne Crown in his hands and the temperature in the room seemed to drop.

She crossed the lab in three clean strides and plucked it from his grip. "Who told you to intrude on my work?"

"What are you doing, mother?" Ace snapped back, anger rising in his chest. He gestured to the spread of papers. "I saw the drawings and the diary. Don’t tell me you’re going to put that thing on him."

Zara set the crown down with more care than she’d used with Ace.

"You saw what your brother did out there," she said, closing the diary. "Do you think he’s in his right mind?"

"Because he was angry?" Ace shot back. "Because you drugged him and dragged him home? He said you betrayed him. What did you do to him?"

He wanted to know so bad the curiosity was eating him from the inside out.

Zara straightened and looked him squarely in the eyes. She stepped forward and he stepped back unconsciously. "What any mother in my position would do," she said. "I saved him from the hands of that witch, Violet Purple."

"Violet Purple?" Ace repeated, bewildered. He had heard about his brother dating her and seen once or so on the news.

"Your brother believes he’s going to be mated to her," Zara said flatly. "Despite the fact that she already has a mate. Not just one but two. He believes he’ll be the next."

Ace blinked. The sentence didn’t fit in his head. "What?"

It was nearly impossible to get a Matebond these days. Having two, that was pretty wild and incredibly lucky.

"That doesn’t make sense. It’s —"

"Insane," Zara finished for him. "She’s feeding my son with nonsense and I would not stand still and let that happen. I won’t lose my baby to her."

"Or," Ace said, dragging air into his lungs, "he’s confused. And given time, Alaric will come back to himself."

"Your brother strangled me, Ace." Zara’s voice cracked like a whip. "He tried to kill me. You saw it. That girl has her claws deeper in him than you want to admit. What will she ask him to do next? To finish the job by slitting my throat in my sleep? I won’t give her the chance."

"Or maybe you’re just being paranoid," Ace said before he could stop himself.

Zara’s head snapped toward him. "Do not tell me I’m paranoid."

Silence cut the room in half. Ace swallowed and he picked his next words carefully.

"The Mnemosyne Crown is too risky,. Mother," he said, tapping the stack of papers. "You’re talking about attenuation of episodic memory anchored in the bond lattice. The lupine cortex wraps the hippocampus. You start damping CA1 and DG with that much weight, you’re not just blurring a few dates, you’re tearing the scaffold holding his shift and his sense of self together."

He pointed at the side note she’d written in the margin. "Dissociation? Split-shift episodes? He could lose control mid-shift and never know why. He could black out and wake up covered in someone else’s blood. You interrupt scent-triggered reactivation, you’re not just targeting her, you’re taking a hammer to his instincts."

"He’s a werewolf," Zara said, cool and clinical. "His neuro-regeneration will soften the blow. We target the episodic track—the where, the when, the faces—and leave the procedural memory intact. He will still know how to shift, how to fight, how to breathe. He just won’t remember her. And anything that tries to bring her back—scent first—we shut that pathway down before it lights."

Ace stared. "You’re saying you would rather erase him than lose him."

"I would rather lose what is poisoning him," Zara said. "And refill the space with better memory than what that witch has stuffed inside my son. If the useless bond with her carves grooves in his brain, then I will smooth them. If the grooves won’t smooth, I will cut around them."

"Mother..." The word came out smaller than he intended. "Does Father know about this?"

The look she gave him made his skin prickle. "Your father is very busy with Alpha Henry’s burial," she said, each word measured. "And under no circumstance is he to return to the pack while I am working."

She stepped closer. The air between them thinned. "You would not like to see me angry, Ace."

He swallowed hard. "No."

"Can Mother trust you?" Zara asked softly, except he could sense the threat beneath it.

Ace hesitated. It was only a second but it sure felt like an hour.

He nodded.

"I want to hear you say it."

"Yes, Mother."

"Good." She patted his shoulder once, the gesture almost tender if you didn’t know what lived behind it. "Now give me space. Bringing this online will take time, and I don’t enjoy distractions."

Ace looked at the crown again and swallowed. Then he turned and walked out. But one thing was clear to Ace, his mother was more dangerous than he thought.