<b>Chapter </b><b>188 </b>


    Jiselle‘


    I didn’t dream that night. I remembered.


    57<b>% </b>


    The world around me bled from color to ash, light draining from every edge until only smoke remained. Not the kind that rose from fire–but the kind that stained memory. The kind that lingers long after the war is over.


    I stood in a clearing that wasn’t mine, in boots that didn’t fit, wrapped in a wolfskin cloak I’d never seen. But I knew the ce. The air. The scent of silver bark and distant embers. I wasn’t me. Not exactly. But I was inside her-


    Serina.


    My hands weren’t my own. They trembled, blood staining the palms, fingers twitching as if they still remembered the sword they’d dropped.


    And around me…


    A battlefield. Empty now. The war had already happened.


    Bodies no longer burned, but ash clung to every surface like it had nowhere else to go. Wolvesy scattered in the dirt, some still wearing sigils, others blindfolded, mouths frozen in silent screams.


    She–1–stumbled forward.


    Past the twisted remains of a throne forged from root and fang. Past a broken circle etched into the ground with runes that pulsed dull and dying. Toward a tree so massive, its trunk vanished into the sky.


    Serina fell to her knees before it.


    And whispered, “I failed.”


    The bark split open like skin.


    And from within came a pulse.


    He ising.


    I woke with a gasp, the cavern ceiling above me, my mouth dry, heart hammering.


    The fire rune on my stomach hadn’t pulsed–not yet. But something beneath it had shifted. A weight, not physical, but knowing. I was still shaking when I pushed the nket off and sat up.


    Nate stirred beside me. He didn’t speak, just shifted to touch my arm, grounding me.


    “Was it a dream?” he asked after a beat.


    I shook my head. “No. It was her. Serina. I saw everything after the Gate first cracked. The Hollow–Born… she tried to lock them away, but she was toote.”


    His expression tightened. “Are you sure it wasn’t just your fear ying tricks?”


    “No,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “She failed. And now… now it’s happening again.”


    I stood and dressed slowly, every movement feeling like it echoed through centuries.


    Eva was already awake when I stepped into the outer cavern. She sat with a half–burned scroll in herp, her thumb smudging a sigil into theer. Her eyes flicked up.


    “You look like you saw a ghost.”


    I crouched beside her. “Not a ghost. A memory. Serina’s.”


    Eva stilled. “You remembered something she did?”


    “I was her. For a moment. She saw what would happen. She tried to stop it. She died failing.”


    Eva closed her eyes. “The leyline is merging with your bloodline. You’re not just remembering. You’re bing.”


    I sat in silence. My fingers drifted to the mirror again, now cracked but still warm with the echo of that vision. I didn’t want to look. But ! couldn’t help it.


    A sh.


    A throne of bones. A crown of fire.


    And a child, half–formed, seated, smiling with my eyes.


    I dropped it like it burned.


    Bastain found uster that morning, scrolls tucked under his arm, his face unusually grave.


    “You both need to see this,” he said.


    He spread the parchment across a t stone, weighting the corners. The handwriting was Serina’s. A prophecy half–burned, but legible enough to chill my spine.


    “When the me and veil collide, one must fall for the other to reign. The lock will tremble, the line will rupture, and the name… will summon the forgotten.”


    Eva’s hand shot out, stopping just short of the parchment.


    “There was more,<i>” </i>she said, voice tight. “It’s been scorched off.”


    Nate entered the cavern behind us, his steps nearly soundless. He took in the scene quickly, gaze settling on the half–burned scroll, then on my face. He joined us without a word, the furrow in his brow already deepening.


    “What does it mean?” he asked Bastain.


    Bastain didn’t respond.


    Not right away.


    And not fast enough.


    I shifted toward him, slow and deliberate. “Bastain. What did thest line say?”


    He didn’t meet my eyes.


    He looked at Nate.


    And Nate… looked down.


    57%


    The silence was louder than any answer.


    “You saw it already,” I said, staring at him, my voice t and stripped of anything soft.


    His jaw locked. A beat passed. Then he nodded once.


    “It said… if the name is spoken in love, the Sovereign will fall.”


    The air in the cavern changed. Like it had been struck.


    I stepped back, not because I wanted distance but because I didn’t know what else to do.


    “So you did see it,” I whispered.


    He inhaled sharply. “I didn’t want to scare you.”


    I stared at him. No expression. Just the truth sitting in my throat like a stone. “You lied.”


    His voice was quick, like he’d been waiting for that word. “I protected you.”


    “No.” The word came hard, clear. “You didn’t trust me. You made the same mistake everyone else has–deciding what I can handle.”


    His face changed. Not anger–something worse. Guilt. He looked stricken. The kind of stricken you can’t talk your way out of. But he didn’t try. He just stood there, frozen, silent, letting the distance grow.


    I turned to Eva, not because I needed her answer–but because I already knew it.


    “If I love this child… if I name them… I could die.”


    She didn’t say anything.


    Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe for a second too long.


    And that silence confirmed everything.


    I left before I said something I couldn’t take back.


    I didn’t cry in front of them. Not one tear. But the moment I was alone–far enough from the cavern, far enough from eyes and questions–I let it fall.


    The night came without sound.


    id on the edge of the leyline ridge, away from camp, where the stone still hummed faintly from magic that ran deeper than any of us


    understood. I let my fingers trace the cracks in the rock. The heat wasn’t painful<b>. </b>It was the only thing that still felt steady. Warm. Familiar.


    Above me, the stars tooked like they’d been cracked open. Too sharp. Too many.


    I should’ve gone back. Should’ve talked to himy. Should’ve tried to understand. But I couldn’t bring myself to face Nate. Not yet. Not when my chest still ached like something had broken and wasn’t ready to be touched.


    The air shifted before I registered it.


    A breeze–not cold. Not natural either. Just… wrong.


    It didn’t raise goosebumps or stir my hair. It slid through me like it already knew my shape.


    <b>15:54 </b>PM 15 <b>Aug </b>


    Then the leyline pulse beneath my hand skipped once. Just once.


    And I wasn’t there anymore.


    Stone stretched beneath my feet, but it wasn’t the same. The color was off–warped, rippling like it had once been molten and never quite cooled. The corridor around me pulsed with me–but not fire. me made of memory and ss, flickering against walls that shimmered like mirrors melted into stone.


    I was walking. Not by choice.


    My legs moved on their own, each step drawn forward by something I couldn’t name. The corridor narrowed, then widened again, revealing a single door at the end.


    ck. Tall. Covered in three runes that burned faintly in the flickering light.


    The first was mine.


    The second was Nate’s.


    The third–wasn’t one I knew.


    But it knew me.


    I stopped in front of it. My hand lifted.


    I didn’t think. Ldidn’t hesitate.


    I just opened the door.


    And inside, in the space beyond the threshold, a voice spoke.


    It was my voice.


    Same tone. Same cadence.


    Same fear tucked beneath the words.


    “He’s almost here.”


    But it wasn’t me who spoke.