Chapter 120
Chapter 120
*Maximus*
Some losses happen all at once.
Others bleed slowly, like watching a flame you once held drift out of reach.
Losing Jiselle to the prophecy was one thing. It was dramatic, tragic, almost poetic- watching her rise into something untouchable. But losing her to Nathaniel? That wasn‘ t myth. That was human. And it hurt like hell.
I watched them now–her and Morningstar–moving around each other like they’d been apart for centuries and had no idea how to share the same air again. She flinched when he got too close. He hesitated when she smiled, like he was afraid it might vanish if he breathed too loud.
And I stood there, pretending it didn’t feel like someone had carved a name I used to carry out of my chest and left the hollow behind.
I didn’t hate her. I didn’t even hate him.
But I wasn’t fine.
So I did what I always do when I can’t fix the present.
I chased the past.
Kael hadn’t been moved far. Just deep enough beneath the ruins of the sanctuary that his containment runes were stable, but not forgiving. The corridor leading to his holding chamber was lit with dull blue flame–pure leyline residue, no fire allowed. They didn’t trust him with even that much.
Neither did I.
He sat on a carved stone bench, wrists bound in blackened runes, magic locked beneath three layers of containment glyphs. He looked older now. Not just tired–used. Like power had chewed through him and spat out the bones. But his eyes were the
same.
Sharp. Watching. Waiting.
“Maximus,” he greeted, as if we were old colleagues meeting for tea.
I didn’t speak right away.
I walked to the edge of the rune circle and crouched.
“You don’t get to say her name,” I said.
He smiled slowly. “I didn’t.”
“Don’t even think it.”
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Chapter 120
A beat.
“You’re still angry,” he said. “But not at me.”
“I’m angry at everything,” I said. “But mostly, I’m curious.”
“Ah. That’s more honest.”
I folded my arms over my knees. “Why her?”
His head tilted. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
“You know what I mean,” I snapped. “There are hundreds of wolves born with strange gifts. Dozens of flame–bearers, even if most never survive long. But why was Jiselle always the center? Why her?”
Kael’s smile faded.
His eyes narrowed, the weight of something heavier sliding into the room like a shadow.
“She’s not the center,” he said. “She’s the key.”
“To what?”
He didn’t answer.
So I pressed harder.
“You obsessed over her. Lied to her. Built an empire just to trap her. You called her a Sovereign, a goddess, a prophecy. And she still chose him.”
Kael didn’t flinch. “She didn’t choose him. She chose herself. That’s what makes her dangerous.”
I blinked.
“Explain.”
He looked at me–through me.
“The flame,” he said, “was only half her story.”
I straightened slowly. “What’s the other half?”
Kael’s gaze flicked to the wall, to the ceiling, then back to me. “You sealed the gate.”
“You tried to open it,” I growled.
He ignored the accusation. “You felt it, didn’t you? When it closed. The snap. The silence that followed.”
I didn’t answer.
Because I had.
He continued. “You thought that silence was peace. But it was containment. That gate wasn’t just a passage. It was a boundary. And now it’s a prison.”
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My blood ran cold.
“What did we trap?”
Kael smiled again.
Not kind.
Not cruel.
Just certain.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “But I know where it lives now.”
My heart thudded hard.
“No,” I said.
He tilted his head. “Are you sure?”
I stood.
“I should kill you.”
“You should,” he agreed. “But you won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not the one she picked,” he said. “And that still burns more than any flame ever could.”
I walked away before I could do something I’d regret.
But the words followed me up the corridor, echoing through the stone, through my ribs through the space she used to fill.
She’s not the center.
She’s the key.
And maybe we hadn’t saved her from the gate.
Maybe we’d only locked the gate inside her.
*Eva*
Later that night
I found Maximus sitting alone near the edge of the broken ridge, where the wind swept down from the cliffs and carried the scent of scorched stone. He hadn’t spoken since returning from Kael’s holding chamber. No one asked what they talked about. But whatever it was… it haunted him.
He didn’t hear me approach.
Or maybe he did and just didn’t care.
“You’re brooding,” I said gently, settling down beside him.
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He didn’t look over. “I’m breathing.”
“That too.”
The silence stretched between us. I was used to quiet from Maximus, but this one had weight. Edges. Like he was keeping something boxed up inside him because saying it aloud might make it real.
“I saw her yesterday, I offered. “Jiselle. Really saw her.”
He tensed.
“She smiled. Not the kind she gives to Nate. Not the broken one she used on you when she thought she owed you something. But something… lighter. Smaller. Human.”
Still nothing.
I nudged him. “You know she’s still in there.”
He shook his head slowly, eyes locked on the dark horizon.
“That’s the problem,” he said. “I don’t know what is in there anymore.”
I felt the cold settle in my bones.
“You think Kael’s right.”
“I think the Veil didn’t just seal. I think it sealed something in. And we watched her walk away like she was untouched.”
He finally turned toward me.
“But what if she didn’t just walk out? What if she walked out with something we can’t
see yet?”
I didn’t answer.
Because part of me had felt it too.
In her flame.
In her silence.
In her eyes when no one was watching.
Something waiting.
And something listening.
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