<b>Chapter </b><b>157 </b>
<b>Ethan </b>
<b>I </b>should’ve known she woulde here.
The Veilfire canyon stretched before us like a wound thend had never healed from. The rocks were scorched, the earth brittle, the air thinner than <b>it </b>had <b>any </b>right to be. And yet, she stood in the center of it all–still, zing, terrifying in her calm.
Jiselle.
Her back was to me. Her silhouette drawn in harsh light against the swirling storm above<b>. </b>Clouds churned like the sky itself was tearing open, <b>and </b><b>her </b>hair lifted in the wind like threads of shadow–glow. But it wasn’t the sky that pulled my attention.
<b>It </b><b>was </b>her.
The rune on her back.
It was no longer pulsing.
<b>It </b><b>was </b>burning.
Etched in full violet me now, it stretched from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine, not carved–awakened. A living thing. And it moved. <b>With </b>each breath she took, the lines shimmered and shifted like a prophecy re–writing itself under her skin.
I wanted to call her name.
I wanted to run into the canyon, drag her out of it, hold her until she remembered who she was and why we’de this far.
But I didn’t move.
Because deep down, I knew–this wasn’t something anyone could save her from.
She had to walk through it. Alone.
Nate stepped up beside me, face pale, jaw clenched. His fingers twitched at his sides like he didn’t trust himself not to <b>run </b>to her either.
“She’s too close to the Gate,” he said.
“She is the Gate,” I answered, before I could stop myself.
Neither of us looked away.
The storm cracked overhead. Not thunder. Something else. A ripple in the fabric of the realm. And then…
Kael appeared.
Not in flesh.
<b>In </b>me.
He stepped through the fire as if molded from it/his eyes hollow with ember light, his skin marbled with scars and memories and magic too old <b>to </b>name. ‘He wasn’t entirely real–but he wasn’t <b>a </b>ghost either. A tethered soul, half–burned, half–beckoning.
And he smiled.
Not wicked.
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Not cruel.
<b>But </b>like <b>someone </b>weing home what had always belonged <i>to </i>them.
<b>Jiselle </b><b>didn’t </b>flinch<b>. </b>
I saw <b>her </b>spine stiffen. Her fingers curl slightly at her sides. But she didn’t turn. Didn’t run.
<b>Didn’t </b>scream.
The rune on her back pulsed again–then glowed brighter, casting strange symbols into the stormclouds above her.
Kael stopped several feet in front of her, just outside the veilfire ring, and lifted one hand.
“I never meant for it to be like this,” he said.
His voice echoed across the canyon like wind over stone.
Jiselle didn’t speak.`
<b>“</b><b>You </b>think this is a war,” Kael continued. “You think this is <b>about </b>death. About conquest. But it’s not<b>. </b><b>It’s </b>about bing. <b>It </b>always was.”
Her head turned slightly, just enough for me to see her profile. Her jaw tightened.
<b>“</b><b>I </b>became what they forced me to,<i>” </i>she said. “You chose this.”
“No,” Kael whispered. “I epted it. And now so must you.”
The mes around him rose. Violet, red, white–twisting into a spiral of raw power, dancing in patterns I’d only seen on the old scrolls Bastain refused <b>to </b>let anyone else read.
He lifted his other hand, and from the center of the fire, something began to take shape.
Not <b>a </b>weapon.
Not a spell.
A doorway.
No–a tear.
The fire didn’t part so much as it peeled, like skin from an old wound, revealing something behind it that wasn’t meant to be seen. Not by mortals. Not by any living thing.
Not physical.
Not solid.
A breach in the world’s fabric, the veil stretched thin like wet silk and older thannguage. It shimmered like water in moonlight, folding inward, outward, and through itself. <b>I </b>could feel it–like breath on the back of my neck, like memory wing up my spine.
And <b>it </b>reached.
For her<b>. </b>
“Join me,” Kael said, stepping into the space where me bowed around him like reverence. “Fuse with me. Fuse with it. And we can remake <b>the </b><b>world- </b>not through chains.” His voice was reverent <b>now</b><b>, </b>eyes burning like open gxies. “Through choice.”
<b>A </b>pause.
<b>09:14 </b>Thu, <b>12 </b><b>Jun </b>
A breath.
Then-
“You were born from this, Jiselle,” he whispered. “You carry the key. And I carry the lock. We began this together.”
He stepped forward. Not fast. Not forceful.
Just close enough to matter.
“End it with me.”
My lungs wouldn’t expand.
Every breath felt like broken ss dragged through my ribs.
Jiselle didn’t move.
Not an inch.
Her hands were at her sides. Palms twitching. Shoulders tight.
But not from fear.
Even from here, I could see it–emotion. That low, choking, soul–splitting kind. The kind that makes gods kneel and sisters scream. The kind that reshapes a person from the inside out.
I started forward.
1
Couldn’t stop myself.
“She needs-” I began.
But Nate’s hand caught my arm. Tight. Not cruel.
“Don’t,” he breathed. “She knows.”
And then-
She lifted her hand.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Trembling.
Not upward. Not to the sky.
And not away.
She lifted it toward Kael.
The storm halted.
The clouds held.
The fire paused mid–pulse.
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<b>09:14 </b><b>Thu</b>, <b>12 </b><b>Jun </b>
The canyon itself went quiet, like the bones of the world were watching, waiting.
My chest went still.
Even Kael–Kael–stopped moving, his breath suspended like the next second could rewrite time itself.
Then-
Her other hand rose.
Not to him.
Upward.
Palm open. Fingers stretched.
And I saw it.
She wasn’t reaching for Kael.
She was choosing.
Something else.
Not destruction. Not surrender.
Her own fire.
Her own will.
Her own right to be.
The clouds overhead split with a shriek of light, not thunder but something older–raw as birth, bright as ruin. Lightning veined across the veil and etched itself in the sky.
The Gate pulsed below–deep and ancient and alive. A heartbeat that didn’t belong to any one being, but all of them.
And then-
Kael staggered.
Like the magic recoiled from her choice.
Like she had broken whatever connection bound them before it could fuse.
His image flickered.
His fire dimmed.
And for the first time since this began–since any of it began–he looked afraid.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered hoarsely, almost pleading now. “If you don’t join me—”
“I am the fire,” Jiselle said.
Her voice wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.
<b>Chapter </b><b>157 </b>
<b>It </b><b>was </b><bplete</b><b>. </b>
Low<b>. </b><b>Steady</b><b>. </b>
<b>And </b><b>it </b>shattered <b>him</b>.
Shattered everything.
Because then–she stepped forward.
Not back.
Not sideways.
Into the ring:
Into the ze.
Into the heartbeat of the world itself.
And the world–broke.
Not into pieces.
Into itself.
The mes didn’t explode outward. They copsed inward, dragging wind<b>, </b>ash, sound, memory into a vortex that sucked the canyon silent.
Magic howled–not like pain, but like truth unleashed from centuries of silence.
I threw up my arms to shield my eyes.
Nate did too, teeth bared against the force of it all.
When we finally looked again-
Jiselle stood alone.
The veil had closed.
Kael was gone.
Gone, but not erased. Absorbed.
And beneath her feet-
The me had redrawn itself.
Into something new.
Not <b>a </b>battlefield.
Not <b>a </b>seal.
<b>A </b>throne.
<b>Not </b>gilded.
Not towering.
<b>5/6 </b>
Chapter <b>157 </b>
<b>Simple</b><b>. </b>
<b>Stone </b>and <b>ash </b>and breath.
<b>The </b><b>kind </b><b>of </b>throne that doesn’t ask for loyalty–but for sacrifice.
<b>She </b>didn’t sit.
Not yet.
She stood above it.
Not as a girl.
Not even as a wolf.
As something born of both.
A sovereign not crowned by bloodlines, but by choice.
And the storm bowed.
So did the canyon<b>. </b>
And somewhere–somewhere behind the sky–the Gate watched.
Because it knew.
And so did I.
Jiselle had not just been chosen.
She had chosen back.
And that?
That changed everything.