Chapter 82
*Jiselle*
So the plan went to shit. Eva was right.
If Nate and I were gone from the trials, the disruption wouldn’t be complete by the time it was time for the blood oath, and Eva and Ethan couldn’t do it alone.
The corridor grew colder the farther they dragged me.
Silver lanterns lined the stone walls, their flickering light bending strangely in the corners of my vision. The guards flanked me tightly, hands never leaving the hilts of their blades. Every step echoed too loudly, a steady drumbeat to the fear clawing at my spine.
Nate was still walking beside me, pushing forward. Shoving one guard aside with a growl that rumbled deep and low enough to make the stone tremble. He reached for me, fury blazing in his gold–rimmed eyes, but three guards intercepted him, swords drawn.
“You can’t follow from this point,” one barked.
Nate bared his teeth, showing his claws, muscles straining as he fought the pull of his wolf.
“Touch her wrong,” he said in a voice full of quiet, murderous promise, “and I’ll rip your throats out. All of you.”
The guards tensed, shifting subtly into defensive stances. Nate’s eyes burned into mine, speaking even when his mouth didn’t move.
‘Hold on,’ he said through our link. ‘I’m coming.’
I nodded once–barely–and then the guards shoved me forward, forcing me to keep walking.
The corridor bent sharply, narrowing into a darker tunnel I hadn’t seen before. The walls changed from stone to polished obsidian, and as I passed under the first arch, a pulse of ancient magic rippled over my skin. It wasn’t welcoming. It wasn’t protective.
It was a cage.
The walls around me buzzed with old magic, and the hallway ahead twisted like a mouth closing in.
At the end of it–where the shadows thickened–two guards waited. Silent. Unmoving.
I slowed instinctively, heart hammering. Something felt wrong. Too easy. Too clean.
And then a whizz of metal split the air.
Two sharp, silver flashes, too fast to fully track.
The guards walking with me jerked forward, choked sounds ripping from their throats. Both crumpled in near perfect sync, their bodies slumping against the walls before sliding down into a heap of tangled limbs and shattered runes.
I froze. Stunned.
What in the world…
From behind one of the thicker pillars stepped a figure cloaked in dark grey. Not a council assassin. Not a rogue.
Instructor Carrow.
Her hood was down, silver hair catching the low light of the torches, her expression severe.
“Hurry,” she barked, glancing sharply down the hall as she shoved the twin daggers back into the sheaths hidden beneath her cloak. “We don’t have much time before Veran realizes her guards are taking too long to deliver you.”
My whole body locked tight.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
Because standing there, framed by the soft, flickering menace of the corridor, Carrow didn’t look like the polished, indifferent instructor anymore.
She looked like something older. Harder.
Someone with her own game.
Someone who had been playing it for far longer than I realized.
— -lank whicnering like ghosts over the stone.
I stayed rooted in place, blood thrumming through my wors
She tilted her head, studying me like a curious specimen. “You don’t have to die here, Jise You don’t have to deat I’m not dying today I said fightly
She smiled wider “No but if you stay, if you continue down this path, you will. The council hes stready decided your tate They’re preparing the containment nunes now–tunic cheens for your wrists and throst One slice of the Vader you power will be tested Forever”
My mouth went dry
“Човn
Carrow moved closer, her voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. “I can get you out. Pught now. A carriage was beyond the mountain road Ho guards No bloodshed Just you. Free?
I shook my head slowly, disbelieving “Leave everyone behind?”
“Yes,” she said fummly “Before it’s too late. Before they chain you to an oath you can’t escape or kill you. Before they no apert everything you are for their own purposes”
Anger swelled in my chest. “You mean leave Eva. Leave Ethan. Leave Hate”
Carrow’s jew tightened. “They aren’t Ethereal. They will live. You-,”
“No” I said, voice shaking. “We live together or we die together”
Her smile vanished.
Fury flickered across her face like a crack in the surface.
“Don’t be foolish, child, she snapped. “You are the Ethereal! The first in a thousand years! You are meant to survive! Not die in the mud with wolves too stubborn to see the bigger picture.”
The torches flickered wildly. The corridor trembled,
“You think you’re the first?” Carrow hissed. “You’re not. You’re just the first one we had a chance to save. I will not let you be wasted”
“le Bastain agreeing to this?”
Her jaw licked, “That honorable fool is trying to sway the council when he knows that wont work. I am actually interested in keeping you alive. How let’s go. I’ll save you, I’ve been working for months to save you after seeing what you did with Emari Nightshade on your first challenge.”
So someone did see. She knew all this time.
Something inside me chilled. “Save?”
And then it clicked.
Was everything connected to her?
The book. The one I found, crumbling in the ancient wing with my name, scrawled in the margins,
I had thought it was fate. Destiny. It wasn’t.
Il was Carrow Wasn’t I?
She had known all along. Known before I even knew. She had marked me as hers.
“You,” I breathed, horror threading my voice. “It was you. You wrote my name.”
Carrow didn’t deny it. “I’ve been watching you since you arrived. Guiding you Protecting you when I could.”
My heart twisted violently. “Poisoning me?”
“No,” she said sharply “That was never me. That was one of the council’s pets. I sent the warning after The ash message. The notes.”
My knees almost buckled. Another truth twisted until it broke apart.
Carrow stepped closer, and I saw the blade in her hand.
Small Blackened steel. Runes etched down the blade in harsh, angular slashes blood runes
Iknew enough now to recognize them. I had one too that Bastain gave me to buy time when I needed to shift.
One cut from that dagger would suppress my gifts. Lock me down Knock me out cold.
Chapter 82
“You’re not saving me if I can’t choose!” I snapped.
“Stop being stubborn, child!” She lunged.
Fast–unnaturally fast.
I twisted instinctively, throwing up my arm, but the blade caught my sleeve, slicing the fabric. A hair’s breadth from my skin.
The air cracked with raw magic.
I staggered back, heart hammering against my ribs.
Carrow straightened, face twisting into something darker. “Don’t make me force you, Jiselle.”
“I won’t go,” I gasped. “I won’t leave them.”
Her eyes gleamed, wild and furious. “Then you’ll die here, like all the others.”
The dagger lifted again.
I raised my arms to block, power sparking beneath my skin, my wolf rising in protest.
But then there was a growl.
Low and ferocious.
It tore through the corridor like a physical force.
Both Carrow and I turned.
From the shadows behind her, a figure emerged.
Fuming.
Shirtless.
Covered in blood and ash.
Golden eyes glowing like molten metal. Eyes that I knew too well. Eyes that I was once in love with.
PN
He moved forward slowly, power coiled around him like a living thing. His body was tense, wound tight with the effort of holding himself back.
Carrow hissed. “This wasn’t the plan.”
“You don’t touch her,” he growled, his voice vibrating the very air around us. “No harm was supposed to come to Jiselle.”
I stared at him.
Stunned. Horrified. Disbelieving
“Max?” I choked out.
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