Chapter 101
*Jiselle*
The ceremony was set for twilight–because, as Kael liked to say, the in–between hours were where change took root.
I stood on the balcony above the eastern courtyard, watching the sanctuary stir with movement. Smoke drifted in slow spirals from the ceremonial fires being lit across the platform, their scents thick with clove and wild sage. Robes of crimson and ash fluttered like flames against the stone. The gifted wolves gather in near silence, each of them prepared to offer a piece of themselves in exchange for something they didn’t fully understand.
Kael called it binding.
Not of chains or cuffs–but of purpose.
It was a rite meant to induct those with awakened gifts into the core of his vision: a world reborn under power, not politics. Unity through evolution. The end of fractured orders. The death of the Council’s doctrine.
And I was expected to stand at his side when the vows were spoken.
Not as a participant.
As a symbol.
My feet refused to move.
Beneath the robes they’d set out for me–silver threaded with deep crimson–I wore the same skin I’d always had. But it felt too tight now. Like I was growing beneath it, stretching into something I hadn’t given permission to form.
Kael had said little to me all day. Just a quiet nod when the morning flames responded to my call with no gesture, no incantation. The fire knew me now. It answered before I asked. That should’ve made me feel powerful,
Instead, it made me feel like I was being watched by my own reflection.
The doors to the platform opened behind me. I didn’t turn. I didn’t need to.
Kael’s presence was impossible to ignore.
“You should be below,” he said.
My hands gripped the balcony’s edge.
“They’re not my wolves.”
“They could be.”
“That’s the problem.”
His footsteps were soft, deliberate. “They chose this. You can either lead them or leave them blind.”
I finally turned to face him.
“You didn’t ask them to choose. You gave them a place to belong and told them the cost came later. You think that’s freedom?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “They are becoming what they were always meant to be. And so are you.”
I stepped back. “I won’t stand beside you tonight.”
Something flickered in his eyes–disappointment, maybe. Not rage. Kael never wasted energy on emotion he couldn’t use.
“This is your place,” he said. “It always has been.”
“No,” I said quietly. “It’s the place you want me in.”
The silence between us stretched, taut and electric.
“I won’t burn for a world I didn’t help build.”
I walked past him, my shoulders stiff, my heartbeat uneven.
He didn’t follow.
He didn’t have to.
The courtyard was lit by the time I descended the steps, but I didn’t stop at the platform. I kept walking–past the fires, past the kneeling wolves, past Lira’s scowl and the ceremonial brazier that hissed as if in protest.
The crowd parted for me.
Some bowed their heads–not out of reverence, but uncertainty. Like they weren’t sure if I was something holy or something dangerous. A few even reached out as I passed, not to stop me, but to feel me. To brush fingers against the hem of my robe as if touching me might grant them clarity–or courage.
Others watched with wary eyes, lips drawn tight, jaws clenched. They didn’t trust me. I didn’t blame them.
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How could they, when I didn’t trust myself?
Whispers trailed behind me—some laced with awe, others with fear, I didn’t stop to separate the two,
Kael took the stage alone.
He didn’t glance in my direction. Not once.
He stood beneath the arch of firelight, hands clasped behind his back, every movement deliberate, every word honed like a
blade.
He spoke of strength. Of unity. Of evolution.
He spoke of a future where wolves like us would no longer bow to Council chains, where power would no longer be feared -but followed. He painted rebellion as renewal, control as balance, and obedience as purpose.
He never mentioned sacrifice.
He didn’t need to.
I didn’t hear most of it.
Not because his voice wasn’t clear, but because every syllable felt like ash against my ears. I stood on the edge of that ceremony and felt the power in the air–the way magic shifted and settled around him, binding itself not to his truth, but to his will. He wasn’t asking them to believe.
He was teaching them to obey.
Because I was already drifting inward, away from the clamor and into the silence where the flame always waited.
That night, I lay in my chamber, staring at the ceiling of stone and rune–light.
I couldn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them kneeling. Saw myself beside him. The crown of fire he hadn’t offered yet–but already wore in his imagination.
But when sleep finally took me, it wasn’t fire that came.
It was a forest.
Mist–heavy. Moonlit.
And there he was.
Nate.
He stood at the edge of the trees, half in shadow, his eyes hollow but familiar. He didn’t call my name. He didn’t move. He just stood there–watching me.
Not like a mate.
Like a mirror.
Like the only thing tethering me to whatever part of myself hadn’t been rewritten yet.
My legs moved before my mind caught up. I walked toward him, the forest shuddering with every step. The flame inside me responded–not in violence, but in sorrow. It didn’t rage. It wept.
I reached out.
And just before I could touch him, the ground split.
I woke with a gasp, my hands clenched, my skin slick with sweat.
And the walls were glowing.
Not from torches.
From me.
My breath hitched as the stone beneath the bed cracked–thin spidering lines radiating outward, pulsing with silver fire. The cuffs that no longer held me twitched where they lay on the nearby table. The window rattled. The ceiling groaned.
And deep in the foundation of the sanctuary, something responded.
I pressed my palms to the ground, fighting for control, for silence. The power didn’t want silence. It wanted release. But I was stronger now.
Not because I had mastered it.
Because I had learned when to hold on.
And when to let go.
I drew in a breath. Focused.
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And slowly, the glow receded.
The cracks stopped growing.
The walls stilled.
But they didn’t mend.
I sat there until dawn, staring at the fissures I’d made.
Not in fear.
In understanding.
I wasn’t Kael’s flame.
I wasn’t the prophecy’s puppet.
And I wasn’t Nate’s mate.
I was something in between–burning, breaking, rebuilding.
And if I was going to crack the world open…
…I’d do it on my terms.
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Chapter 102
