Chapter 143
Chapter 143
Jiselle
The moment my fingers brushed the rune Max had pointed to, a spark leapt beneath my skin. Hot flame. Not magic. Memory. Ancient, buried, and not mine
The sigil wasn’t large. Barely the width of my palm. Etched in the center of my wrist by instinct, not intention. I hadn’t known what I was drawing–but the shape had bled out of me like breath, familiar and inevitable.
Max had recognized it before I did.
“You’ve drawn this before,” he’d murmured, staring at my wrist with something like awe… or dread.
And now, it answered.
The air around me thickened. The trees dissolved. The tent, the firepit, even the scent of pine and dew–gone in an instant.
And I was somewhere else.
Not dreaming. Not possessed. Submerged.
The world around me was firelight and shadow. Stones beneath my feet radiated heat. The sky above stretched endless and black, cracked by lightning In the distance, a structure loomed–massive and ancient. A gate. But not the one I’d seen in the mountains. This one was wider. Older. Still open.
And before it stood a woman.
Serina.
I didn’t recognize her by face, but by presence.
Her magic coiled in the air like a breathing entity, and her silhouette shimmered, caught between worlds. Violet fire curled from her hands—pure, unbroken. Her body trembled, barely holding form, but her spine remained straight, her chin lifted.
She looked like me.
No–like what I might become.
She was whispering. Not in words I could understand, but the cadence was familiar. Ritualistic. Reverent.
And then she turned.
Her eyes were like mine. But not just in color. In weight.
She saw me.
Across time, across memory, across everything that should’ve kept us apart–she saw me.
And she stepped forward.
My breath caught.
“Don’t let them bind you,” she said, her voice echoing through my bones. “Not by prophecy. Not by power.”
I tried to speak, but my lips wouldn’t move.
Her eyes softened. “You are not the gate. You are the flame that guards it.”
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Chapter 143
A tremor rolled through the earth,
Behind her, the Veil Gate pulsed, its runes glowing like stars.
A voice—not hers, not mine–rose from the stone. Deep. Commanding
“If it opens again, it must be sealed with willing flame.”
I staggered back. The words hit like a blade across my chest.
Serina’s face twisted. Not in fear. But in sorrow.
She turned to the gate.
And stepped into it.
Violet light exploded.
I screamed.
The world shattered-
And I was on the ground, breath ragged, Nate’s hands gripping my shoulders.
“Jiselle!”
Eva knelt beside him. Max hovered behind, his expression unreadable.
“She’s back,” Eva whispered. “She’s back-”
I pushed upright, the fire still sparking beneath my skin. The echo of the vision burned in my throat.
I met Max’s gaze. “You were right.”
His brows lifted.
“The rune… it’s hers. Serina’s. I saw her. I lived it–her final memory?
I turned to Bastain, whose face had gone pale as ash.
He didn’t speak right away.
So I did.
“The gate needs a sacrifice.”
Silence fell like a blade.
Bastain stepped forward. “What did it say exactly?”
“If it opens again, it must be sealed with willing flame.”
He closed his eyes, jaw tightening.
Eva reached for my hand, her fingers trembling. “Does that mean…”
“It means someone has to go in,” Nate said. His voice was flat, but his grip on my arm betrayed the tremor underneath.
“No,” I said immediately. “It doesn’t have to be like hers. Serina walked into that gate alone. She thought she had to die to close it.”
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10.53 Fri, 30 May
Chapter 142
Her brows furrowed. “What?”
I pointed. “That mark. You etched it once–months before the Trial. In the old library on a scrap of parchment. I only remembered it because you said you’d dreamed it,”
She stared at the mark like it was foreign.
“I don’t remember that,” she whispered.
“Maybe you weren’t meant to,” I said. “Maybe Serina was.”
Jiselle looked up at me. And for the first time since the flame took her, her eyes held something raw. Something open.
Fear.
“Do you still love me?” she asked, voice barely audible.
I didn’t flinch.
“Yes,” I said. “But I won’t ask you to return it.”
She nodded slowly, as if the honesty hurt worse than any lie.
“I need you to know,” she said, “that I’m not that girl anymore.”
“I know,” I replied. “But she’s still part of you.”
We sat in silence again, this time different than any before.
This time, it felt like a truce.
Jiselle drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Her aura flickered softly, casting faint reflections across the stone.
“You were my first,” she said. “In more ways than one. And I hate that the way we ended will always be tangled in that.”
I swallowed hard.
“But I also know,” she continued, “that in the final war, if I fall, you’ll be the one to catch me. Even if you hate me by then.”
I turned to her, throat tight.
“I don’t think I’ll ever hate you,” I said. “I think hating you would mean cutting out the part of me that still wants to be better.”
She gave a small, sad smile.
“Then maybe,” she whispered, “we’ll survive this. Not as what we were. But as something new.”
The wind picked up around us, and somewhere deep beneath the mountain, the leyline pulsed again–faint, like a distant heartbeat.
And still, I watched her.
Because even if I never touched her again, even if Nate was the one she gave herself to, I knew this truth like I knew the feel of a blade in my hand:
I would burn the world before I let her burn alone.
Even if she never looked at me that way again.
Even if she only remembered the worst of me.
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Chapter 142
Su may
I would still be her blade.
Because some weapons aren’t made to shine.
Some blades don’t rust.
They endure.
