Hope was never something I was built for.


    I could handle blood. Pain. Even death, if it came with rity. But hope? That fragile, flickering thing that lived in other people’s prayers? It <b>had </b>always been dangerous to me. Slippery. Undépendable. Like trying to hold fire in your bare hands and expecting not to bleed.


    So when the nurse said the word–pregnant–and the air left the room like a copsed lung, I didn’t know what to do with the silence that followed, Jiselle hadn’t said a word since the dream that woke her. Since the word echoed through her like a ghost returned.


    She sat curled in the window now, wrapped in the infirmary nket like a fortress, eyes far away. Pale light from the half–clouded moon streaked across her skin, turning her hair to smoke. She looked untouchable. Ethereal. Like something not entirely here.


    And I… I couldn’t stop watching her.


    She hadn’t asked me to stay. She hadn’t needed to. I wouldn’t have left anyway. But the longer the silence stretched<b>, </b>the more something inside me began to fray. Not from her. From myself. From the ache building in my chest. The burn beneath my skin.


    I stood and left quietly.


    Not because I wanted space.


    But because I needed answers.


    Bastain’s quarters had always been an odd hybrid of schr and soldier. Half the room looked like a library torn from a forgotten temple. The other half was war–beaten steel and tactical maps.


    He looked like hell.


    Bandages wrapped his torso beneath a loose ck tunic. His hair, usually slicked back with meticulous pride, hung loose over his brow, streaked with ash and blood. He didn’t look surprised to see me.


    “You heard,” I said.


    He nodded once, not looking up from the scroll he was studying. How he knew? I had no idea. But I didn’t question it.


    I paced.


    “You knew this was possible. Didn’t you?”


    –


    “Possible?” He gave a lowugh. “Barely. You and Jiselle are anomalies, Morningstar. Creatures that should not coexist in the same bloodline, let alone…”


    “Create life. I know. But we’re mates. Wouldn’t this be possible?”


    He looked at me then. “Veilborn blood has always been bound to rupture then pop up again in another century or so. And with Maximus dead, you’re <b>the </b>only moving veilborn left in your generation. And the Ethereal… it was never meant to carry. Or so we thought. But they were always hunted and killed before they could even try.”


    I pressed my palm to the wall beside me, grounding myself. The cold seeped into my skin but did nothing <b>to </b><b>calm the </b>shaking <b>underne </b>


    “So what does this mean<b>? </b>For her? For the child?”


    Bastain rose slowly, crossing the room to a tall cab sealed with multiple wards. He broke the first with <b>a </b><b>touch </b><b>of </b><b>his </b>fingers. <b>The </b><b>second </b><b>required </b><b>a </b>drop of blood. When the final seal cracked open, he retrieved a thin, timeworn scroll wrapped in deep violet cloth.


    <b>1/4 </b>


    “Serina wrote of this. Not directly. But in echoes.”


    He unrolled a section carefully, the parchment so fragile it looked like it might disintegrate in air,


    “She called it the ‘Womb of Convergence. A moment in time when two forces not meant to mix collide within a single vessel. And whates from it… always disregarded it, as I never knew what to do with it. But you and Jiselle always find a way to amaze me.


    He met my eyes, and I saw something there I hadn’t seen in him before.


    Doubt.


    <b>“</b>This child could be the tether,” he said. “Or the fuse.”


    The words rang in my ears. Tether. Fuse. One meant salvation. The other, detonation.


    I clenched my jaw. “You’re saying this child could destroy her. Or destroy everything.”


    “I’m saying we don’t know what this child will be.” He gestured to the scroll. “But if Serina feared it enough to write in riddles… it means <b>it’s </b><b>not </b>just prophecy. It’s warning.”


    I took <b>a </b>breath. It burned.


    Bastain closed the scroll again and pressed it into my hands. “It was meant for her. But I think <b>it </b>speaks more of your line than hers. <b>You’ll </b>understand why.”


    By the time I returned to the infirmary, the sky had darkened. Shadows stretched long across the academy’s battered halls, and the scent of ash still clung to the stones. I paused before the door. Something told me not to walk in yet. Not until I was ready.


    I heard movement. Then a sound that didn’t belong.


    A low gasp. Not pain. Not surprise. Something worse.


    Fear.


    I pushed the door open.


    Jiselle stood in the middle of the room, her back arched slightly, one hand gripping the edge of the bed, the other clutched over her abdomen.


    Her eyes were wide. Distant. Locked onto something only she could see.


    “Jiselle?”


    She didn’t hear me.


    crossed the space in three strides, catching her shoulders before she could fall. Her body was ice beneath my palms, but her skin radiated heat. A contradiction I didn’t understand.


    “Hey. Hey, look at me. Breathe.”


    Hershes fluttered. “They were burning.”


    I swallowed. “Who?”


    She looked past me. Through me. “All of them. The field was full of blindfolded wolves. And they were burning from the inside out.”


    My grip tightened. “It was <b>a </b>vision.”


    She nodded slowly. “But not like the others. I felt it. Their pain. Their screams. It wasn’t just a warning. It was a memory.”


    <b>“</b>Not yours.”


    <b>“</b>No.” Her voice cracked. “Hers.”


    The hair on my neck lifted.


    <b>“</b>The child.”


    She nodded once.


    “But how? She’s not even born yet!”


    I pulled her close then, pressing my forehead to hers. Her breath was shallow. My arms wrapped around her, pulling her to my chest. I felt the thrum of something inside her. Not malevolent. Not pure either. A presence.


    “We need to tell Eva. And Ethan.”


    She leaned into me. “We will.”


    That night, I sat in one of the abandoned reading chambers just down the hall. Scrolls scattered the table. Bastain’s words looped in my mind. Tether or fuse.


    What if I’d cursed her by loving her?


    My hands shook as I unwrapped the scroll. Serina’s seal was unlike anything I’d seen before. Not wax. Not ink. But woven threads of light, preserved in binding salt.


    I broke it.


    The scroll unfurled in symbols I didn’t recognize at first. Then, slowly, they began to shift. Rearranging. Forming words I could understand. Language lost to time, but remembered by blood.


    When fire and veil meet beneath a sovereign moon,


    A spark shall awaken what the Gate could not seal.


    Neither curse nor gift,


    It shall walk between,


    A child of bnce undone.


    read the lines again.


    And again.


    Bnce. Undone.


    I pressed my fingers to the parchment, tracing the faint etchings.


    Jiselle was strong. Fierce. Braver than anyone I’d ever known.


    But could she survive what was growing inside her<b>? </b>


    And if not-


    Would I have the strength to stop what came after?


    <b>3/4 </b>


    I didn’t sleep that night.


    The scrolly open before me, glowing faintly with the fire of something ancient.


    Something watching.


    And in the quiet, where hope once tried to live, only one thing remained.


    The burn beneath my skin.