Chapter 100
*Nathaniel*
The blade didn’t hum.
It breathed.
The Mirror Fang rested across my palms like a living pulse, faint and rhythmic–so quiet it might’ve been mistaken for nothing, but unmistakable once felt. Its edge shimmered with an inner light that wasn’t moonlight or flame but something older, buried deep in the roots of magic itself. Bastain stood a few feet away, arms crossed, his expression carved from stone. He’d said nothing since we’d unwrapped it again, but I could feel the weight of his judgment in the air between us. I didn’t blame him.
I shouldn’t be holding it.
“You don’t have to do this tonight,” he said finally, low and measured. “We don’t even know how it reacts to an anchor that isn’t bonded.”
“That’s exactly why I have to test it now,” I murmured, not looking away from the blade. “If this thing is the only way to stop her-”
“To save her,” he corrected, sharp.
I didn’t answer right away. The wind rustled through the clearing, the trees groaning under the weight of growing tension, and for a second, it felt like the whole forest was listening.
“Saving her might mean both,” I said softly. “And we both know it.”
I stepped into the center of the warded circle we’d carved into the dirt–sigils along the edge to contain backlash, to absorb any reactive magic. Bastain hadn’t spoken while I’d drawn it, but his eyes had followed every stroke, his silence a judgment louder than any protest.
I took a breath.
And dragged the blade across the back of my forearm.
It wasn’t deep–not a cut designed to wound, but to test. The moment the edge met my skin, the world folded inward.
Not pain.
Not immediately.
It was like being unstitched–every thread of who I was yanked from the weave, examined under a cruel light, then left untied. The magic leapt from the blade like it had been waiting, curling through my veins, touching not just the wound, but the space behind it. The parts of me that remembered. The tethered corners of my soul.
The mate bond.
Or what had once been.
The breath tore from my lungs as a rush of heat flooded my chest. Not the warmth I’d felt when she was near. Not the comforting flare of recognition that used to spark whenever Jiselle entered a room. This was different. It burned.
And then I saw her.
Not in memory.
Not in hope.
In prophecy.
Jiselle stood at the top of a scorched rise, flames coiled around her body like living armor. Her hair flowed like silk threaded with wildfire, and her eyes–gods, her eyes–they were silver and endless and gone. Not blank. Not cold. Just beyond.
She didn’t see me.
She didn’t feel me.
Around her knelt a dozen wolves, all cloaked in ash and blood. They bowed their heads, not in reverence but resignation. Their magic hung like smoke–dull, heavy, drained. They weren’t loyal.
They were afraid.
And Jiselle–my Jiselle–stood there like a queen without a heartbeat.
Like fire wearing flesh.
I stumbled backward, the blade clattering to the ground as I choked on breath that didn’t come. The vision shattered, the magic tearing from me in a violent wave, tossing dust and leaves across the circle. Bastain was already moving, hand on my shoulder, his voice distant.
1/2
Chapter 100
“Nate. Breathe.”
My knees hit the dirt, and I braced myself, trying to force air into lungs that didn’t feel real. Everything around me was too sharp, too loud. The earth buzzed beneath my fingers, as if still trembling from what it had seen.
“What did you see?” Bastain asked once I steadied.
I looked at him.
And for the first time since she was taken, I didn’t know how to answer,
“She was.. crowned. Cloaked in flame. Wolves bowed to her.”
His brow furrowed. “Willingly?”
“No,” I said, my voice hoarse. “They feared her.”
He went quiet.
I picked up the blade again, slower this time. The edge still pulsed, but dimmer now, like it had used up whatever it had gathered from me. I didn’t feel severed, but I didn’t feel whole either.
The vision clung to me like a fever dream.
Bastain walked to the edge of the circle, watching the sky. The moon was high and half–full, cutting silver across his face like war paint. “If that’s what she’s becoming…”
“It’s not,” I said too quickly. Too desperately.
He didn’t turn around.
“Then what is she becoming?”
I couldn’t answer that. I didn’t know. But what chilled me most was that a part of me–some small, quiet part–recognized her in that vision. She hadn’t looked evil. She hadn’t looked lost.
She’d looked certain.
And I didn’t know how to fight certainty in the one person I’d always believed I could reach.
Bastain finally faced me again, his expression unreadable.
“If you try to save her like a lover,” he said, “you may lose her.”
I swallowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means love makes you hesitate. And hesitation gets you killed. Or worse–it gets her killed. You don’t have the luxury of sentiment anymore.”
He stepped forward, eyes steady. “Save her like a warrior.”
I looked down at the blade.
Its reflection shimmered faintly–just enough to show me my face. Not as it was, but as it had become.
Harder.
Older.
Tired.
I wrapped the blade and slid it into the leather sheath I’d carved for it days ago, tucking it close to my hip. Not because I’d made the decision.
But because I might have to.
The forest was quiet again. But this time, it didn’t feel like it was holding its breath.
It felt like it was waiting.
