My Greate Husband 147_Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend

Chapter 147

 Jiselle 

 The woods thinned long before the silence did.

 Even the air felt strange–hollow, expectant. Each step closer to the Gatekeeper camp left a deeper imprint on the soil, as if thend itself wanted to remember I hade. My fingers twitched, me held tightly beneath my skin, coiled like a warning I hadn’t yet spoken aloud. Not for them for meas

 Eva had offered toe. So had Ethan, and Max, and of course, Nate. But I’d said no.

 This wasn’t a battle.

 Not yet.

 This was an introduction.

 The veil–fire had burned for hours before they sent word. And when the messenger returned, he came with a single line:

 “He waits where the ash doesn’t fall.”

 Whatever that meant, Bastain tranted quickly. “It’s old code. It means a ce untouched by death. Sacred ground.”

 Sacred. Right.

 That word didn’t sit well in my mouth anymore.

 The camp was set in a crescent basin of stone, ringed by jagged cliffs and cut clean down the middle by a stream that pulsed faintly with leyline magic. Not the kind I controlled. Not even the kind I’d learned to listen for. This was deeper. Thicker. It pressed on my ribs as I descended, like I was being tested with every breath I took.

 And then I saw them.

 Gatekeepers.

 Dozens.

 All draped in veiled robes, identical in color and cut. Pale gray like faded ash, the hem and sleeves etched with thin, curling runes. No two faces showed, only silhouettes and movement. They lined the path like statues, standing at silent attention. Their masks were bone–white. nk. Almost too smooth. No mouths. No eyes. Just void.

 Every eye turned to me.

 Or maybe they always had been.

 I kept walking.

 Each step sounded louder than it should have. No one breathed. No one moved.

 At the end of the path, a fire burned–not me, not smoke. Veil–fire. Violet light curled in soft, spiraling tendrils around a stone dais. And there–atop it- stood a single figure.

 He did not speak.

 He simply watched.

 Then–he knelt.

 – Hot out of reverence, 

 Not out of weakness.

 Out of certainty. 

 You are the threshold,” he said, his voiceyered–echoes folded into the sybles like shadows folding into dusk. “What stands behind you must fue imed… or consumed.”

 The wordsnded like weight.

 Something inside my bones stirred. My scar pulsed once. The key–still etched into the flesh of my back–felt hot, alive.

 “I didn’te to be imed,” I answered.

 He rose. Slowly. The veil over his face shifted like smoke, but did not part. His height was only slightly more than mine, but the presence… that towered.

 “You misunderstand,” he said softly. “iming is not possession. It is responsibility. Wee when the Veil no longer holds. Wee when something tries to step through that shouldn’t. Or something that already has.” 

 My mouth dried. “You think that’s me?”

 “I know that’s you.”

 Silence folded around us again.

 Then he stepped aside.

 “Speak to her.”

 The others shifted for the first time since I’d arrived. A single figure moved from the line. Smaller. Lighter. Veiled like the rest.

 She walked with precision.

 Not grace.

 Memory.

 My breath snagged.

 Something in my gut twisted.

 The fire behind the mask was too familiar.

 And then–she lifted her hood.

 I didn’t breathe.

 Couldn’t.

 It was her.

 Serina.

 But not.

 Not quite.

 The eyes were too steady. The jawline too sharp. The skin unlined by fear or fire. But it was her face. The same one I’d seen in visions. In memories. In the 

 rine–marked room beneath the sanctuary,

 The same face that had looked back at me through me as she died sealing the Gate.

 My voice cracked, “Serina?”

 She didn’t answer at first,

 Just studied me.

 Then she tilted her head and smiled faintly. “That’s not my name anymore.”

 My knees nearly gave.

 Behind her, the Gatekeeper watched withoutment.

 “You died,” I whispered.

 “I did,” she said. “But dying and leaving are not always the same.”

 I took a step forward. My body buzzed with heat. My skin prickled with disbelief.

 “You’re a memory.”

 She shook her head. “I’m a consequence.”

 A chill bled into my bones.

 “I saw you,” I said. “I saw your death. I saw the cliff. The mes. I felt it.”

 “I know.”

 “Then how are you here?”

 She didn’t answer directly. Instead, she reached into her sleeve and drew out a rune–carved disc, holding it t in her palm. As soon as the light from the veil–fire touched it, the disc pulsed.

 Not red.

 Not gold.

 Violet.

 “You’re like me,” I breathed.

 “No,” she said. “You’re like me. But more. Stronger. Wiser. Chosen not by prophecy–but by pattern.”

 The Gatekeeper stepped forward again. “When the Veil breaks, it sends warnings. Patterns. Fractures of thest guardian. Serina’s death wasn’t an end. It was a transfer.”

 “A transfer to what?” 

 “To you.”

 of this.” 

 I staggered back a step. “You don’t understand. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want any o

 “But the me did,” Serina said. “It doesn’t need permission. Only space.”

 I looked at the runes circling the camp now–etched into the stone, mirrored in the dirt, glowing softly in time with the veil–fire.

 10:14 Tue, 3 Jun 

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 “You’ve known all along,” I said. “You’ve been waiting.”

 The Gatekeeper nodded. “Not for you. For what follows you.”

 I swallowed. “And what is that?“.

 Serina lifted her palm again. The disc had begun to dissolve, turning into faint streams of light that spun around her wrist.

 “Whates after the threshold,” she said, “is not fire. It is choice.”

 Something in my chest cracked then.

 A realization I couldn’t name.

 I met her eyes one more time.

 And asked, “Are you going to help me?”

 She paused.

 Then said, “That depends.”

 “On what?”

 She stepped closer.

 Until our breaths mingled.

 Until I could see the faint scars at her temple. The ones I hadn’t noticed before. The ones that looked like mine.

 “On whether you’re here to seal the Gate again…”

 She touched my chest–right over the scar.

 “…or to open it.”

 The wind howled through the canyon like an answer.

 And somewhere deep beneath our feet-

 The Gate pulsed.

 Still closed.

 But listening.

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My Greate Husband 147