<b>Chapter </b><b>153 </b>
<b>*</b>Jiselle‘
The bond stirred before I did.
Not a tug. Not a whisper.
A low, pulsing call–like blood humming in the earth beneath me.
I sat up in my bedroll, the cold already licking at my skin. The fire from the night before had burned to embers, and everyone else remained asleep, scattered around the main circle. But I couldn’t rest. Not when my chest felt like it was vibrating from the inside out.
I rose quietly, wrapping a shawl around my shoulders and ncing once toward the others. Nate’s silhouette was nearest the ridge, his head tilted toward the gorge, even in sleep. I didn’t wake him.
Because whatever this was–it was mine.
I followed the call barefoot.
The ground was cold, damp with morning mist. The trees were silent. Even the wind felt like it had paused, waiting. As I slipped deeper into the woods, the bond grew louder. It wasn’t pain, but it was heavy. Heavy like grief. Like memory trying to resurface before it drowns.
My path curved toward the gorge again, where the leyline pulsed in slow, invisible waves beneath the soil. I walked until the scent of smoke turned bitter -until something beneath my ribs twisted.
And then I saw it.
The body.
Not sprawled. Not discarded.
Positioned.
Kneeling. Head bowed. Arms outstretched like prayer.
His robes were Gatekeeper, but torn. Burned. Blood soaked the front of his chest, staining the empty white circle carved over his heart. His hands trembled, still twitching even in death<b>, </b>as if the ritual hadn’t yet let him go.
My breath caught in my throat.
I dropped to my knees beside him, and the second I touched his shoulder, the me inside me surged.
Violet light pulsed from my palm into his blood–soaked tunic–and the world reeled.
The bond snapped taut.
My body went still.
And my mind…
My mind wasn’t mine anymore.
I was standing somewhere else<b>. </b>
<b>A </b>ruin. Cracked stones. Smoke curling along the ground in thick tendrils, like something alive. <b>In </b><b>the </b>center <b>of </b><b>the </b><b>circle </b>stood Kael–<b>barefoot</b><b>, </b><b>arms </b>
10.35 <b>ue </b>
raised, blood dripping from his left palm.
He was chanting.
Not loudly.
Low.
Like prayer.
And every word was my name.
Jiselle.
Jiselle.
Jiselle.
He carved the sybles into ash with each step, and the ground drank them like offerings.
Behind him–three bodies. Gatekeepers. One already dead. One barely breathing. One sobbing as if they’d seen the end of the world.
Kael moved to the third.
Pressed a kiss to their brow.
And slit their throat.
The smoke swallowed them.
The blood didn’t ssh. It curled, lifted, coiled into the air and formed symbols I didn’t recognize–but felt in my spine.
I tried to move.
<b>I </b>couldn’t.
Because this wasn’t a vision.
It was <b>a </b>memory.
His.
Or… no.
The dying Gatekeeper’s.
The one who’d knelt.
I was watching through his eyes.
I could feel his fear. His awe. His certainty.
Kael wasn’t just opening the Gate.
He was feeding it.
And he was using me to do it.
I screamed.
My scream are but of me tippeway my
The dead Darkseper’s body fly fill backward, bng the beading an
A hiss that became whisper
“He’s using your name,” & sid
scrambled backward, my hands calli plowing my wet pounding so tour rouge might trust the d
“Jiselle?”
Nate’s voice tracked through the trees, foltosed by the thunder of focktape a Broke into the clearing, amepen
His eyes locked on mine.
Then on the body.
Then on the me still flickering around my fingers.
“What happened?” he asked, dropping to one knee.
I couldn’t speak.
Not yet.
Eva fell beside me, checking the Gatekeeper’s pulse. “He’s gone,” she murmured.
I nodded slowly.
“I touched him,” I whispered. “And I saw it.”
“Kael?” Nate asked.
1 looked up.
Met his eyes.
“Yes,” I breathed. “He’s already begun the ritual.”
Ethan’s fists clenched. “Where?”
*I don’t <b>know </b>exactly. Somewhere ancient. A ruin. The me ring maybe. I saw symbols. Smoke. Blood.”
“What kind of symbols?” Bastain asked as he emerged from the trees, his expression carved from stone
I lifted my palm. “These.”
Violet light red again, sketching the same runes in the air I’d seen in the memory. They burned into the space like scars–beautiful and terrifying,
Bastain paled.
“That’s not just any ring.” he whispered. “That’s the First Circle.”
Nate looked at him sharply. “The one Serina was bound in?
He nodded. “The original Veil ring. The one that nearly split the teyline when it copsed”
10:35 Tue, <b>10 </b>Jun
“He’s opening the Gate there,” I said. “But not just with blood.”
They stared at me.
I turned my palm toward them.
The runes were still there, burning, not fading.
K78<b>% </b>
“He’s using me,” I said. “Or worse–he’s be a part of me. Somehow. When he carved my name into his chest… when he took the second rune…”
Eva reached forward and gripped my wrist. “Jiselle, if he finishes the triad-
”
“The Gate opens,” Bastain finished grimly.
“No,” I said, voice trembling. “It opens without me.”
A long silence fell.
The trees groaned.
The air crackled.
Max stepped forward from the edge of the clearing, his eyes narrowed on the runes.
“I’ve seen these before,” he said. “In the scrolls Bastain showed me. But they were faded. Iplete.”
“They’re not iplete anymore,” I said. “Kael’spleting them. With me. With sacrifice.”
“With you,” Nate added.
I nodded.
And for the first time in a long while, I felt truly afraid.
Not for myself.
But for all of them.
For what Kael had already set in motion.
For what I might be if I couldn’t stop it.
But beneath the fear…
Beneath the rising panic…
Something else stirred.
Something cold.
Something older than the me<i>. </i>
I turned to the dead Gatekeeper, staring into his vacant eyes.
He’d been one of theirs.
Kael had used his own followers.
Why?
10:35 Tue, <b>10 </b>Jun WG.
Why them?
Why now?
Unless-
“Jiselle,” Eva whispered, brushing my arm. “Your hand.”
I looked down.
The me was gone.
But the blood remained.
Etched in the center of my palm–red, not violet.
A rune drawn in the man’s final moments.
A name.
Not mine.
Not Kael’s.
Serina.
I gasped.
The others stared.
4.气:78%會
Bastain cursed under his breath.
“She warned us,” he said. “She said the me could be transferred. Rewritten. If Kael’s trying to finish the triad–he might be using her memory, not just your power.”
“Then we’re already toote,” I whispered.
“No,” Nate said fiercely. “We’re not.”
I looked at him.
The bond pulsed between us.
Stronger than before.
Stronger than ever.
It hadn’t broken.
Not yet.
Not while I still had a name.
Not while I still had <b>a </b>choice.
I stood, shaky but certain.
“We’re going to the First Circle,” I said. “Now.”
10:35
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7
Behind us, the ground split again–just enough for the blood–soaked soil beneath the Gatekeeper’s body to hiss once more, and from the crack, <b>a </b>whisper rose into the wind: “Come home.”
<i>AD </i>
~~mment