<b>Chapter </b>204


    *Jiselle*


    The relic room was colder than usual.


    55 vouchers.


    Eva lit antern and passed it to me without a word, her eyes already scanning the nearest shelf. The light flickered across the uneven stone walls, casting shadows that danced like memories I wasn’t ready to remember. Bastain trailed behind us, slower than usual, one hand grazing the ancient rune carvings along the arched doorway. He’d been quiet all morning. Tense. As if something in the air made his spine straighten and his jaw lock.


    We were here for answers. But the kind that didn’te easily.


    “You’re sure it was this wing?<b>” </b>I asked, brushing dust off a stack of weather–worn tomes.


    Eva nodded. “The archive said a Sovereign–born scroll was sealed here. Reimed after the Academy fell. But- the record was<b>… </b>vague.”


    “Too vague,” Bastain murmured, his voice rough.


    He didn’t like this ce. Neither did I. Not since we’d realized the mes in my veins didn’t just belong to me. Not since the rune on my back had started glowing in my sleep, reacting to the leyline even when I didn’t touch it.


    I knelt by a shattered chest and began sorting through what remained–shards of old crystal, broken instruments, a ceremonial knife dulled by time. Then something shifted behind the splintered wood. A crack. A breath.


    I reached inside.


    The scroll wasn’trge. No brighter than any other relic. Its casing was obsidian ck, threaded with thin gold wire down the center, sealed at both ends with dried wax that looked like petrified blood. I held it up.


    Eva tilted her head. “That it?”


    “It’s nk,” I murmured. “No markings.”


    “Try touching it,” she said, already stepping closer. “Sovereign magic might’ve sealed it.”


    I hesitated only a moment before pressing my fingertips to the wax seal. It hissed. A faint, quick pulse of warmth surged through my palm–and then the scroll opened.


    Bastain froze.


    Eva leaned in. “It opened for you.”


    Inside, the parchment gleamed faintly in the low light. The writing wasn’t in anynguage I recognized. Not runes. Not old Council dialects. Not even Veil script. The ink pulsed, like it had been written in something alive. Gold and violet–just like the me that lived inside me. Just like the child.


    <b>8:52 </b><b>Thu</b>, <b>Sep </b><b>11 </b>


    There was only one word written across the center. I didn’t know how I understood it. But I did.


    The name.


    Her name.


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    It settled in my mouth without me saying it aloud–like it had always been waiting on the tip of my tongue, dormant and powerful.


    Bastain made a sound low in his throat, stepping forward like something had struck him.


    “You know it,” Eva said quickly, sensing the shift in the room.


    He didn’t answer immediately. Just stared at the scroll like it had grown teeth.


    Then, finally: “It was carved once before. Beneath Serina’s grave. A sigil. Hidden behind the stone. I didn’t know what it meant at the time. I thought it was a myth. A name only whispered, never spoken. But this… this confirms it.”


    I stared at him. “What kind of name appears twice in a bloodline like ours?”


    “One that was never meant to be spoken at all.”


    The leyline trembled under us.


    It wasn’t violent. Not like thest rupture. But it was there. A ripple in the magic beneath the floor, like a warning. Or a promise.


    Eva looked at me then–really looked. Her eyes glowed faintly, like she was trying to see through me. “They’re not visions of death anymore.”


    “What?<b>” </b>


    “When I dream. When I see you. It used to be fire and ruin. Now it’s still fire. But there’s something… alive in it. Crying. Breathing. A pulse I can’t ignore.”


    My hand drifted down, resting over the curve of my stomach.


    “You’re saying you see birth,” I whispered.


    She nodded.


    I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. The scroll in my hand had grown warmer, heavier, like it knew what we were talking about. Like it wanted to be heard again.


    “I’ve seen her eyes,” Eva added, voice soft. “Not in visions. In memory. In something older. I think… I think she was alwaysing. But something dyed her.”


    Bastain nodded grimly. “The Gate.”


    Another tremor rolled beneath our feet, softer this time.


    <b>8:53 </b>Thu<b>, </b><b>Sep </b>11


    I clutched the scroll tighter, heart beating fast. “What does it mean?”


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    “It means her arrival might not just bring the me back into bnce,” Bastain said. “It might rewrite it entirely.”


    Eva’s expression was unreadable. “And not everyone wants that.”


    We left the relic room with silence wrapped around our shoulders. The scroll was sealed again, tucked safely beneath my cloak, but the name still echoed in my skull. I didn’t speak it aloud. I wasn’t sure I could.


    The path back to the stronghold was quiet, save for the whisper of wind through the canyon. Something about the air had changed since we’d gone below. It felt… electric. Like something charged had moved through and left residue in its wake.


    I could still feel the pulse beneath my feet.


    The leyline was awake.


    I stepped into my quarters, intent on bathing and resting–but as I undressed, the mirror caught a glint of something just below my ribs.


    I turned slowly, pulling my tunic up.


    It wasn’t a wound.


    It wasn’t blood.


    It was light.


    A soft pulse–faint, barely visible–but there.


    A sigil.


    Not drawn. Not scarred. Formed.


    A curl of gold. A shard of violet. A spiral I didn’t recognize, but somehow understood.


    It pulsed again when I touched it.


    And the child inside me kicked.


    Not hard. Just enough to let me know she was awake. Listening. Aware.


    I sank to the edge of the bed, breath catching.


    This wasn’t just about me anymore. Not even just about her. This was something ancient–older than Serina, older than the Veil.


    Her name was older than the Gate.


    And yet… somehow… it had waited for me to speak it.


    8:53 Thu, Sep 11


    I didn’t. Not yet.


    :


    But I pressed my palm t against my stomach, closed my eyes, and whispered instead:


    “I see you.”


    The pulse returned–softer this time, like a reply.


    <b>43 </b>


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    And beneath us, somewhere far deeper than the stronghold’s foundation, the leyline groaned like something was beginning to shift.


    Something wasing.


    And for the first time, I wasn’t afraid of it.


    But I was no longer sure who I’d need to be to survive it.


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