Chapter 89
*Nathaniel*
Smoke hung in the air like a second sky–dense, choking, laced with the bitter tang of magic and scorched stone. I stood in the middle of the ruins, surrounded by the aftermath of a war we hadn’t been ready for.
The once–imposing walls of the Academy lay in broken heaps, pillars split and scorched black, banners torn to ribbons. Moonlight filtered weakly through the dust, casting pale streaks across blood–slicked ground. Wolves limped or crawled, some cradling wounds, others carrying the dead. But I saw none of it.
All I saw was the place she’d vanished.
Jiselle.
Every second since that portal had closed felt like a blade pressed against my throat, constant and unforgiving. I’d searched the river tunnels for hours, chasing whispers of her scent, flickers of magic, anything that might lead me to her. But the trail had gone cold. Cold and wrong.
I clenched my fists at my sides, my claws half–shifted, refusing to retract. My wolf paced inside me, feral and grieving. He had no direction. No target. Just a void where she should be.
Bastain’s voice cut through the ringing in my head. “You need to stop.”
I turned, slow and sharp, my body stiff with barely leashed violence. Bastain stood a few feet away, leaning heavily on a broken staff. Blood stained his tunic, his face drawn and exhausted.
“I need to find her,” I said, my voice raw.
“I know.” He exhaled slowly, glancing over his shoulder toward the makeshift infirmary the survivors had assembled in the eastern courtyard. “But running yourself into the ground won’t help her.”
I looked past him, toward the flickering torchlight beyond the rubble. I could just make out Ethan’s silhouette, sitting beside Eva’s unconscious form. She lay on a pile of blankets, her skin pale, her side wrapped in layers of blood–soaked cloth.
“How bad?” I asked quietly.
“Bad,” Bastain admitted. “But she’ll live. Thanks to Ethan–and Max.”
I ground my teeth at the mention of his name.
Bastain noticed. “Whatever you’re feeling, put it away. We’ve already lost too much.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
Instead, I walked to what was left of the portal site. The ground still hummed faintly beneath my boots, a low throb of residual power. I knelt and pressed my palm flat against the stone. It was warm. Not from fire–but from the afterglow of magic. Suppression magic. The same kind they’d used on her. The kind that cut through gifts like a blade.
I swallowed hard, forcing the memories back.
The way she screamed. The way our bond had snapped like brittle glass.
I had failed her.
“She fought them,” Bastain said behind me. “Even when her magic was failing. I saw it. She wasn’t taken easily.”
I nodded once, but the words offered no comfort.
“How did they do it?” I asked. “That suppression disc. The rune net. The portal. Where the hell did rogues get access to something like that?”
Bastain crouched beside me, his gaze fixed on the cracked runes scorched into the stone. “They didn’t.”
I turned to him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“These aren’t rogue sigils,” he said, tracing one with his fingertip. “They’re older. Sharper. Layered in a way that only one faction ever used.”
I didn’t breathe.
“The Council,” he said. “This is their work.”
The fury that surged through me nearly broke my control. I stood abruptly, pacing, my hands flexing at my sides. “They did this? They built those damn tools to suppress gifts–and now the rogues are using them?” Bastain didn’t rise. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying this was Council tech from the start. Ancient, forgotten, hidden in vaults even the High Alphas didn’t know about. My guess is someone dug it up–or never stopped using it.”
“But why use it on her?” I demanded.
“Because she’s the key,” Bastain said simply. “They were never going to let her awaken fully. The prophecy. The book. The
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Chapter 89
name carved in the margins. They were afraid.”
“So they tried to control her.”
“Or break her.”
I felt sick.
All of this–the trials, the visions, the bond–we’d been playing on someone else’s gameboard, with rules we didn’t even know existed.
I looked toward the tunnel mouth again, teeth clenched so tightly my jaw ached. “We need to find her. Now.”
Bastain stood slowly, wincing as his knees cracked. “I’ve already sent scouts to follow the ley lines. That portal left residue -rune threads. Faint, but traceable. And there’s one more thing.”
He pulled a sliver of crystal from his pouch and held it up to the moonlight. It pulsed faintly, silver at the core.
“What is that?”
“A tracker,” he said. “One she wore in her earring. Fused with her energy signature. I enchanted it the day before the trials, just in case.”
My heart skipped. “You think it still works?”
“It’s dim, but alive. She’s alive.”
Those words hit harder than I expected.
Alive.
That single confirmation pushed air back into my lungs.
“She’s north,” Bastain added. “Far. Somewhere in the Wildlands. Beyond Council borders.”
“The rogues‘ territory.”
“Maybe. Or what we thought was theirs.”
I looked back toward the others. Max was talking to Ethan now, his face pale, one arm bandaged. Eva hadn’t moved.
“I can’t wait,” I said.
Bastain didn’t argue. “Take a team. Two at most. Move quietly. This wasn’t just a kidnapping. It was a declaration.”
I nodded.
He gripped my shoulder. “You’re not just her mate anymore, Nathaniel. You’re the last person she trusted. That makes you dangerous to whoever took her.”
“I intend to be.”
I gathered what little I had left. A torn satchel. A pair of blades. A small rune reader. I paused once beside Eva, brushing her hair back gently. Ethan looked up at me, eyes hollow.
“Bring her home,” he said.
“I will.”
Max didn’t speak as I passed. He only nodded once.
The air was colder beyond the ruins, laced with mist and old pine. I followed the silver pulse in the crystal, letting it guide me deeper into the unknown.
And as I slipped into the shadowed woods, one thought burned brighter than all the rest:
You’re not gone.
Not yet.
I will find you, Jiselle.
Even if I have to tear the earth apart to do it.
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