Chapter 109
Jiselle*
I woke to silence.
Not peace. Not calm. Just the kind of silence that feels like something had been scraped clean. The stone beneath me was still hot, still pulsing faintly, but the flames had died. No spiral, No chant. No power coiling through my limbs like a leash tightening with each breath.
Just me.
And the ash.
I pushed myself up slowly, my arms trembling under the weight of whatever had passed through me. My robes were scorched at the hem, and a halo of soot surrounded the spot where I’d fallen. The cracked floor beneath me glowed faintly
in spiderwebs of white fire–residue from something too big to name and too dangerous to repeat.
The chamber was empty.
Kael was gone.
So were the wolves.
All except one.
Lira stood at the far edge of the circle, motionless. No weapons. No guards. Just her, and the silence.
“You’re awake,” she said. Her voice was unreadable.
I nodded, though my throat burned too much to speak.
“They think you ascended,” she added.
I blinked.
“They think you became the flame. That you rejected the crown because it was beneath you.”
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. “They’re wrong.”
She shrugged once. “They don’t care. They’re already building you a new title.”
My heart thudded hard in my chest. “What title?”
Her lips quirked, bitter. “The Ember Queen.”
I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “They didn’t see me collapse.”
“They saw the fire bow to you. That’s all they needed.”
I rose to my feet slowly, wincing at the sharp pull in my ribs. Every muscle ached, but I was whole. Somehow. I should’ve been destroyed. Broken apart by the leyline’s attempt to bind itself to me. But instead of fusion, there was rejection. The power pushed and I pushed back–until everything cracked.
Not cleanly.
Not safely.
But enough to sever whatever Kael had tried to create.
I limped past Lira, ignoring her steady gaze, and pushed through the heavy corridor doors. No guards blocked m acolytes flanked me. The halls were empty, but I felt them watching. Whispers trailed down the corridor ahead ote, distant voices pressed into the stones.
She burned the circle.
She saw the mate.
She chose something else.
I pressed a hand to my chest. The scar from the bond was still there–not in flesh, but deeper. Not dead, but dormant. And I didn’t know what that meant anymore.
My chambers were lit when I returned, though I didn’t remember lighting the lanterns. My reflection in the mirror stopped me–my eyes rimmed in soot, my cheeks flushed with heat, the white robe now grey at the edges, clinging to my shoulders like a shroud. I looked like something half–finished. Not sovereign. Not rebel. Just scorched.
A note resfed on the table. A single sentence scrawled in Kael’s hand:.
The crown waits when you are ready.
I tore it in half.
Then in quarters.
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Chapter 109
Then burned the pieces with a whisper of my power.
He still thought this was about choice. About ceremony.
But I was done pretending that any of this had been mine to choose.
I left the room within the hour and descended back into the forbidden library. This time, I didn’t sneak. I walked openly, shoulders square, magic flaring faintly at my fingertips–not threatening, just present.
The library opened around me like it had been waiting.
Deeper than the outer shelves. Past the sealed volumes. To a corridor where the fire glowed blue, and the stones beneath my feet bore the symbol I’d seen only once before–in the Trial of Flame.
The Sovereign Rune.
But here, it was cracked.
Like something had broken it on purpose.
I followed the path until it ended in a small alcove, stone bench carved into the wall, and a single volume placed reverently in the center of a flame–suspended pedestal. I didn’t hesitate.
The flame parted as I reached in.
The book was bound in hide–old, scaled, and tough as armor. No title. No sigil. Just a smear of dried red along the spine. I opened it.
And found a letter.
To the one who walks the fire last-
You were never meant to wear a crown.
We didn’t build this for rulers. We built it for reminders. That power is a cost, not a gift. That we were never meant to survive it whole.
I was the first. I held the flame and let it burn the one I loved, thinking it would stop the world from breaking. But it broke
anyway.
If you’re reading this, you have a choice still.
Not to save the world. Not to become a goddess.
But to walk away.
They won’t let you. They will worship you or fear you until you forget the difference. Until you forget your name.
Don’t.
The rest was smudged–dampened by water or time. I couldn’t read it.
But I didn’t need to.
I closed the book gently and stood in the dark, the pedestal fire guttering low beside me.
I wasn’t her.
But I understood her now.
And maybe that was enough.
The next morning, the sanctuary was buzzing with movement. Wolves bowed as I passed. Not because I told them to–but because the fire had. Some looked at me like I was salvation. Others, like I was the weapon they’d been waiting for.
None of them looked at me like a girl who’d once cried at the edge of a battlefield, whispering a name that no longer
with her.
I didn’t correct them.
I didn’t speak.
But inside, something was unraveling.
Not power.
Not control.
Just truth.
I was not Kael’s creation.
I was not their Sovereign.
I was not the Ember Queen.
I was Jiselle Johal.
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Chapter 109
And I was done being a symbol.
Let them bow if they wanted.
But the next time I stepped into the flame, it would be because I chose to burn.
Not because they asked me to.
Not because prophecy said so.
And not because Kael needed a body to anchor his immortality.
Because I was fire.
And fire doesn’t ask.
It consumes.
And remakes.
And rises.
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