Chapter 126
Chapter 126
*Jiselle*
I knew this wasn’t real the moment I opened my eyes.
The air didn’t breathe right. It felt too smooth, too still. The scent was faint–lavender and parchment, like old books and pressed bedsheets. The lighting glowed gold, but no sun filtered through the window. There were no windows.
Just walls painted soft cream, an arched mirror beside the dresser, and a bed I hadn’t seen since I was sixteen.
My bedroom.
The one I’d left behind when the Trials came. Before the Academy. Before the Council. Before Kael. Before everything burned.
It was perfect.
Untouched.
Frozen in time.
I sat up slowly. The bed didn’t creak. My fingers sank into the comforter–quilted, sun- stitched, handmade by a mother I barely remembered and a future I no longer believed in. The shelves still held trinkets from childhood. A cracked snow globe. A ribbon from my first run in wolf form. A photo of me and Ethan, arms around each other, wild- eyed and grinning like we had time to waste.
I stood.
The mirror caught my reflection.
But it wasn’t me.
Not fully.
The girl who stared back at me was younger. Her hair shorter, her eyes wider, clearer. No circles under them. No burn scars across her collarbone. Her hands didn’t shake. Her posture wasn’t braced for betrayal.
She looked whole.
And she was crying.
“Why are you here?” she asked me, voice soft and trembling.
I backed away. “This isn’t real.”
“Neither are you,” said another voice, sharper. I turned–and saw her.
Another me.
Successfully unlocked!
Older.
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Academy–era. Dressed in my old uniform, hair scraped back, eyes cool and guarded.
“You’re a construct,” she said. “A patchwork thing. You think you’re Jiselle, but you’re just what’s left.”
More footsteps echoed.
I spun around, heart racing now.
Three more girls stepped out from the corners of the room, each one shaped like a version of myself I’d locked away.
The quiet one who stayed silent when Max touched her.
The ruthless one who fought to survive the Trials and won.
The burning one–eyes glowing, fingers singed–who whispered back to Kael when he asked, “Will you rule?”
They surrounded me.
“You’re broken,” one said.
“You’re lying to everyone,” said another.
“You keep running,” hissed the third. “Even from yourself.”
I backed into the dresser. My reflection fractured in its surface–each girl a shard, slicing through me.
“Stop.”
They didn’t.
“You let the flame in.”
“You let Eira in.”
“You think love will fix this?”
I clenched my fists. “This isn’t real.”
They smiled.
“That’s what you said when Max marked you.”
“When Nate left you.”
“When Ethan begged you not to run.”
I turned away. My throat closed. The floor under me began to ripple, the wood warping like heat on water. The room was folding in.
“Make it stop,” I whispered.
“Then rest,” said the quiet one. “You’re tired.”
“You’ve done enough,” said another.
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“You don’t need to fight anymore,” the burning one said. “Let us burn for you.”
Their voices layered. Soft. Seductive.
“You were never meant to carry this alone.”
“Let go.”
“Let us take it from here.”
I sank to my knees. My hands shook. The world felt far away. I couldn’t feel the bond. I couldn’t feel my wolf. Just guilt. Thick and old and drowning me.
“You’re not strong enough anymore,” one of them said, kneeling beside me.
“You’ve tried,” another said. “It’s time to stop pretending you can do this.”
I closed my eyes.
Just for a second. Just to breathe. Just to escape the crushing pressure of their voices echoing through my skull like chants carved in stone.
And that’s when I heard it.
Not a sound exactly.
A whisper.
So faint I almost mistook it for memory. Like something I’d imagined a hundred times in the dark just to feel safe.
Jiselle…
The syllables slid into the space behind my ribs and curled there. Familiar. Gentle. Not the flame. Not the voices.
His.
My breath caught. Sharp and sudden.
The mirror–girls froze around me, mid–step, mid–breath–every version of me going still as if someone had rung a bell in a locked room.
Jiselle… can you hear me?
The voice drifted not through the air, but through the bond. Old and scarred, but still there. The thread frayed but not severed. It was Nathaniel. Not in full–but enough. Like the embers of a fire that refused to die.
Please come back to me.
My chest clenched, a sob building without sound. I didn’t realize I was reaching out with my thoughts until the tether pulled tight, the ghost of our connection sparking against the edges of my soul. I clutched at it instinctively, like breath after drowning. Like warmth after exile.
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I opened my eyes.
And said, “No.”
The girls tilted their heads in eerie synchrony, as if glitching through confusion.
“No?” one echoed, blinking slowly.
I straightened, every part of me heavy as iron, but I stood anyway.
Because that was the thing about Nate.
He never stopped believing I could get up.
Even when I didn’t.
“He’s still with me,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
A sharp crack split the mirror behind them, slicing diagonally across the glass. The sound rang out like a warning. Like truth made manifest.
“You don’t belong here,” I said, eyes narrowing on them now. “You’re pieces. Ghosts. Regret dressed in skin. And I’m not done yet.”
They stared.
Silent.
And for the briefest of moments, I thought maybe they would dissolve. Fade. Let me
But one stepped forward.
Not the youngest. Not the oldest.
The one draped in flame.
She moved like smoke, her steps graceful, deliberate. Her eyes were Eira’s, but the mouth was mine–set in that stubborn line I only wore when I’d already decided how the story would end.
She stopped in front of me, chin tilted just slightly.
“I’m not a ghost,” she said, and her voice rang like steel wrapped in silk. “I’m the only version of you that survives.”
I stared at her. “No. You’re the version who gave up.”
She didn’t flinch.
Instead, she smiled.
And lifted her hand.
Flame poured from her palm—not wild, not violent. It danced like it had all the time in the world. Coiling upward in a lazy spiral, licking the air between us.
“I’m the fire you buried,” she whispered. “And the part of you that never stopped
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burning. You don’t have to fight anymore, Jiselle.”
My hands curled into fists.
“You’re wrong.”
Her flame arced slightly, casting shadows across the cracked mirror behind her.
“Let me burn,” she said. “You were never meant to carry this alone.”
And behind her, the mirror glowed brighter–no longer reflecting.
But opening.
Waiting.
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