Chapter 119
Chapter 119
Jiselle
The air outside the mountain tasted different.
Not like victory. Not like peace. Just… thinner. Like something sacred had been exhaled, leaving the world quiet and gasping in its absence. The ground beneath us was still warm, like the last heartbeat of something ancient fading into stillness. Smoke curled from the mountain’s seams, faint and directionless, dissolving into the
morning sky.
The Veil Gate was gone.
But it hadn’t left us untouched.
I stood at the ridge just beyond the final drop, wind threading through my hair, every inch of my body sore and humming with remnants of fire. Not the old kind–the violent, coiled magic that once demanded too much–but a quieter pulse. A flicker.
The bond between me and Nathaniel hadn’t faded. It throbbed gently under my ribs, not like a tether, but a thread I could follow if the world fell apart again. I didn’t know what it meant yet. What we meant yet. But right now, it was the only part of me that felt grounded.
The others gathered behind us in slow waves. Eva came first, brushing dust from her face, her braid loose and wild. Maximus arrived next, keeping his distance, silent as the stone, but his eyes never left me. And then Ethan.
He didn’t approach right away.
He watched.
Long enough that I felt the weight of it pressing between my shoulder blades.
When he finally moved, he didn’t walk–he stormed.
“Nate,” I said quietly.
Nathaniel caught the tone in my voice and stepped aside.
Ethan closed the distance in three strides and stopped directly in front of me. His jaw
was tight. His eyes were red. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a year.
“You’re not going to apologize, are you?” he said flatly.
I flinched.
“No.”
He nodded once. “Good. Because it wouldn’t be enough.”
I opened my mouth, but he held up a hand.
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“You left. You burned. You broke the gate and nearly yourself. I stayed behind because Eva needed me, and because I thought you needed space. But do you know what it did to me to wait? To wonder whether you were already dead, or worse–willingly gone?
I didn’t have an answer.
He kept going. “You’re my sister, Jiselle. My twin. We came into this world together, and I swear to the gods, I felt something rip when that gate shattered. I thought I lost you.”
“I thought I lost me too,” I said softly.
His face faltered for a second. Just a crack.
Then he exhaled, the fire in his chest dimming. “You could’ve told me. You could’ve let me carry some of it.”
“I didn’t want you to see what I was becoming.”
“I already saw it,” he said. “And I still would’ve gone.”
He stepped forward and pulled me into his chest.
I froze.
Then melted.
I didn’t cry, but it was close.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he whispered against my temple. “Don’t do it again.”
“I’ll try.”
He pulled back, still holding me by the shoulders, and studied me like he was checking for fractures. Then he nodded, like maybe I was enough again.
Eva was waiting nearby, arms crossed, watching us with a softness I hadn’t seen since before the Trials. She walked up once Ethan stepped back and tugged me into a hug
without a word.
“I thought you’d come back broken,” she murmured. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“I might still be.”
She leaned back and smirked. “Then you’re in good company.”
We both laughed–just for a second.
It hurt.
In a good way.
Nathaniel hadn’t moved far. He stayed at the edge of the rise, giving me space without letting me go too far. That thread between us pulled again, like a heartbeat. Like
memory.
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I turned to look for Maximus.
He wasn’t where he’d been.
I found him pacing a few yards down the slope, arms folded, eyes tracking the scorched trees at the base of the cliffs. He hadn’t said a word since the fight.
Since the gate.
Since us.
I walked to him slowly. My steps felt heavier the closer I got.
He turned before I spoke.
“You look different,” he said.
“I am.”
A long silence stretched between us.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He looked at me, then back at the earth. “No.”
I nodded. “Me neither.”
He huffed a laugh–short, hollow. “You didn’t even look at me in there. When everything was falling apart.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Because of him?” His voice was quiet.
“Because of me,” I answered. “I wasn’t ready to face what I meant to you. Or what I didn’t anymore.”
His jaw clenched. “You did mean something.”
“I know. You still do.”
He met my eyes then.
And I let him.
“I loved you,” he said.
“I know,” I whispered. “I think I loved you too.”
“But not enough,” he said. Not bitter. Just… tired.
I didn’t argue.
He took a breath. “Does it kill me to see you with him? Yeah. But I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t already know. You always burned differently for him.”
I felt tears build again.
But they didn’t fall.
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“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t. Life did. Magic did. Fate did. But not you.”
He stepped back.
“We’re good,” he said.
“Are we?”
“We will be.”
I watched him walk away.
And a part of me ached.
But another part finally exhaled.
Eva approached quietly. “He needed that. So did you.”
I nodded.
The leyline beneath us pulsed again. A tremor rolled through the soil.
Eva knelt and pressed her hand to the dirt.
“It’s not over,” she said. “The flame might be sealed, but the leyline is still unstable.”
Ethan crouched beside her. “That gate did more than ripple. It woke something.”
Maximus returned, face grim. “We need to scout the lower valley. I felt a pull earlier. Something–familiar.”
“Veilborn?” Nate asked.
Max nodded once. “Maybe.”
I looked out at the horizon. The mountain behind us, the forest ahead.
We’d survived the fire.
But I wasn’t sure yet what waited in the smoke.
Only that I wasn’t walking toward it alone.
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