Jiselle‘


    The descent began in silence.


    No one spoke as we moved deeper into the spiral chamber that had opened beneath the Academy ruins–unlocked by the final glowing sigil on my wrist. The walls were smooth stone, but as we walked, etchings began to appear–glowing softly, like embers refusing to die. Punes old enough to predatenguage itself shimmered in strange sequences across the curved tunnel, each one brushing against something inside me I didn’t have a name for i could feel them. They weren’t just markings. They were memories.


    Of fire. Of sacrifice.


    The air shifted as we went lower, thicker with heat, yet not suffocating. The deeper we went, the less it felt like stone under our feet and more like bone.


    Something ancient pulsed in the walls. I could hear it. A steady beat. Or maybe that was my own heart, pounding harder with every step. Mate walked beside me, close enough that our hands brushed once, but he didn’t speak either. None of us did. Ethan led with a torch. Bastain walked just behind me, silent and unreadable. Eva lingered at the back, clutching her satchel like it might shield her from what we were about to see


    And then the tunnel opened.


    The chamber bloomed wide, like the inside of a hollow mountain. Firelight glowed from cracks in the ceiling, casting golden light on a strange days in the center–formed of petrified ash and fused obsidian. Around the edges of the room were fragments of things: broken crystals, decayed robes<i>, </i>and remnants of symbols long burned away. A ritual had happened here. No–something more.


    This was where it all started.


    “This is it,” Bastain said, his voice a whisper that felt like it echoed in every direction. “This is where she tried to seal the Gate”


    She. Serina<b>. </b>


    I stepped forward slowly, drawn to the center like gravity didn’t care about choice. My footsteps felt loud on the cracked floor, though no one tried to stop me. They couldn’t have. I was already halfway to the dais when the memory began.


    It started with light.


    No one else seemed to see it–only me. The walls shifted, just slightly, like a shimmer moving across ss. Then heat. Rising from the stone itself. My knees buckled, and I gasped as me coiled out of the floor, circling me like a snake. Nate called my name–i heard it faintly—but the fire didn’t burn. It carried me inward.


    And then I was her.


    I wasn’t standing anymore. I was kneeling, hands pressed into stone etched with fresh blood. My body trembled with exhaustion, I could feed Serina’s thoughts, sharp and frantic. She was sealing the Gate. She’d carved the sigils herself into the rock, into her skin. Around her, the others screamed. Friends? Followers? Their faces blurred, lost to time. There was too much smoke. Too much noise.


    Then I felt him.


    Kael.


    Not as a threat. Not as a viin.


    As her love.


    He stormed into the ritual chamber, blood streaked down bis chest, his eyes wild with fear and betrayal.


    “You lied to me,” he choked out. “You said you’d want. You said we’d do this togethert.”


    Serina’s heart broke inside me.


    <b>1/3 </b>


    09.12


    Tue<b>, </b>24 Juli


    “I had to act,” she whispered. “You wanted to merge with it, Kael. You would’ve destroyed yourself. The Gate doesn’t need a vessel—it needs a seal”


    “You don’t understand!” he shouted. “The seal won’t hold. It never holds. We need to be it. Fuse with it. Then we can control it. Protect them.


    Protect you.”


    He stepped toward her, hands outstretched. “I did this for you.”


    She backed away. “You did this for power.”


    And in that moment, I felt the truth. Kael hadn’t always been wrong. He had been desperate. He had loved her. But somewhere along the line, love


    became obsession. Protection became possession.


    He tried to force the fusion. He marked her–against her will, his blood binding to hers–and for a second, the Gate opened.


    It screamed.


    Not with sound, but with memory.


    The Veil split. Fire poured from the ceiling. The circle copsed. Serina pulled away, shoving him back, and carved one final rune into her own chest with shaking hands. Her scream echoed through me as she sealed the Gate with her own blood.


    Then it ended.


    I fell to my knees on the dais, sobbing. The vision faded, but the pain remained. Nate was beside me in seconds, his arms wrapping around my shoulders as I curled into him. I didn’t even realize I was shaking until he pressed his forehead to mine.


    “What did you see?” he asked gently.


    My voice broke. “Serina. All of it. The seal. The betrayal.”


    Bastain crouched nearby, but didn’t interrupt. Eva had her hand to her mouth, eyes wide with horror.


    “She loved him,” I said. “He tried to be the Gate. To fuse with it. He thought that was the only way <b>to </b>save her.”


    Nate’s jaw tightened. “Is that what Kael wants now?”


    “I don’t know,” I whispered. “But he’s not just trying to open the Gate. He wants to be it.”


    Silence stretched again.


    Then the wall behind the dais shimmered,


    Another sigil–one I hadn’t seen before–ignited across the stone. Not like the others. This one wasn’t glowing gold or red. It was white. Like bone. Like


    death.


    My legs moved before my mind caught up. I ced my hand on the stone.


    The room vanished.


    I wasn’t in the chamber anymore.


    I stood in a scorched field, sky ckened with smoke, the wind howling with voices that didn’t belong to the living, in the distance, the Gate stood wide open, spiraling into nothingness. mes spilled from its edges like water from a broken dam.


    And in front of it… Nate.


    He was older. Tired. Wounded. He held a de in one hand and a sigil burned across his chest the same one that had just appeared on <b>the </b>wall me was facing something in the fire. Me.


    09:12 Tue, 24 Jun


    Or… the version of me that chose the Gate.


    3001


    She wore white, her eyes burning gold, her hair ame. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t cruel. She was empty. Her hand lifted slowly, and Nate took a step forward, pain etched across every line of his face.


    “You don’t have to do this,” he said. “You’re still in there. I know you are.”


    She didn’t answer. She just turned toward the Gate.


    “Please,” he begged. “Don’t make me stop you.”


    And then–he burned.


    Fire shot from the Gate, swallowing him


    His scream ripped through me.


    I snapped back to the chamber, breath torn from my lungs, the stone beneath me burning. My skin was drenched in sweat, but the cold was worse. A different kind of cold. A future I couldn’t survive.


    A voice–low, ancient, and terrible–echoed through the stone beneath my hand.


    Fuse before he burns.


    It wasn’t a threat.


    It was a plea.


    8