Chapter 152
Chapter 152
Nathaniel
The leyline had gone quiet.
Too quiet.
I stood at the cliff’s edge above camp, the wind tugging at the hem of my coat as I stared into the distance. The horizon was stitched in stormclouds, black and bruised, as if the sky itself had been punched and left to swell. But it wasn’t just the air that felt wrong. It was everything. The ground beneath my boots didn’t quake with fear or fault–it pulsed. It breathed.
Slow.
Measured.
Expectant.
Something old was waking.
And it knew her name.
Behind me, I heard the flap of canvas part and Bastain’s footsteps crunch the earth. When I turned, he looked pale–more scholar than soldier, more
bone than man–with an ancient scroll clutched in his hands like it might dissolve if gripped too tightly.
“It’s not a door,” he muttered, not to me, but to the wind. “The Gate… it’s a womb. A tomb. A threshold for rebirth and ruin.”
I stepped back from the ledge and faced him fully, the storm at my back now, tension gathering in the soles of my feet like I was meant to run–but didn’t
know where.
“What are you talking about?”
Bastain lifted his head slowly, the weight of years shadowing his eyes. “There was a prophecy,” he said, voice barely more than a rasp. “Not one you’d find in the clean pages of the Academy’s records. It was fragmented. Burned from history long ago. But I found a margin note on one of the scrolls we salvaged. Emari wrote a name beside it.”
A chill licked up my spine. “Whose name?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Jiselle’s.”
The breath left my lungs like I’d been hit.
Bastain gently unrolled the brittle parchment, the edges fraying like nerves. “It says: When the veil breaks, the threshold must choose–to close it… or
become it.”
My throat went dry.
“Become it?” I repeated. “What the hell does that mean?”
He met my gaze. “It means this wasn’t about sealing something behind the Gate. It was about deciding whether to house it.”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
Because even as the words left his mouth, the scar on my chest–the one I thought had healed into a tether with Jiselle–flared again. Not painfully. Not like a wound. But like an echo. A second heartbeat lodged beneath my ribs.
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Chapter 152
It hadn’t stopped since her back first glowed.
Hadn’t slowed since her flame changed.
And now it vibrated with something I didn’t understand–something that didn’t feel like her, but didn’t not feel like her either,
A new breath stirred the air.
Then the storm cracked.
Not thunder.
Not lightning.
Something else.
Something sharper. Deeper.
The sky split in a flash of violet so sudden, it painted the clouds in eerie silhouette. For one suspended breath, the world stood still. And then-
Hoofbeats.
Max came tearing into the clearing like the ground itself was chasing him. His armor was scorched, shoulder bleeding, strands of hair stuck to his face
with soot and sweat.
“She’s gone!” he shouted before the horse even stopped moving. “Kael’s gone too! He’s already at the ruins.”
Bastain stepped forward. “What ruins?”
Max dismounted hard, boots hitting the ground like stone on steel. “The original flame ring,” he said, panting. “The first Gate.”
My blood turned to ice.
No one spoke. For a heartbeat–just one–the world inhaled.
Then I said, “He’s forcing it.”
Max nodded grimly. “And you have hours. Maybe less.”
Bastain looked like he was going to be sick. “If he completes the triad…”
“The Gate won’t need Jiselle anymore,” Max finished. “It’ll just take her.”
My fists clenched, and I fought the urge to sprint toward the valley. Because running blind wouldn’t save her. Not this time. And gods help me, I wasn’t ready to lose her again–not to prophecy, not to Kael, not to whatever thing was humming beneath our feet like it had already decided her fate.
“I need to see it,” I said.
Max and Bastain turned toward me.
I didn’t wait.
I walked to the center of the clearing, past the scorched stones and old sigils where Jiselle had once lit the veil–fire. The leyline beneath us had always been subtle—a current, a whisper. But now it pressed against the soles of my feet like a live wire. And deeper still, I felt it—her. Not just her power, not just
the tether. Her essence.
Every step buzzed with pressure. Not resistance. Invitation.
The ground pulsed once.
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Chapter 152
Then again.
And then–cracked.
A thin fracture opened beneath me, no wider than a dagger’s blade, but deep. So deep it felt bottomless.
I knelt.
Violet light pulsed from below.
And in it–something beat.
A rhythm.
Not like a drum.
Like a heart.
One that didn’t belong to the world.
One that didn’t belong to Kael.
And yet–it called for her.
Jiselle.
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The bond inside me yanked hard.
I grabbed my chest, gasping. “She’s connected to it.”
“Not just connected,” Bastain said. “She is it.”
“What?”
“The Gate… was never a place. Not really. It was a convergence point. A soul waiting for a vessel. And Kael… he’s trying to complete the triad–body, flame, and bond.”
My head spun.
Max stepped beside me. “You’re saying he’ll force the Gate open by becoming the second vessel?”
“No,” Bastain corrected. “He’ll force it by copying what Serina once failed to do. She sealed it alone. But if Kael sacrifices himself into the wrong channel, it won’t close.”
“It’ll open wider,” I breathed.
Bastain nodded. “And consume everything in its path.”
Max swore under his breath, running a hand through his ash–smeared hair. “So what the fuck do we do?”
“We stop him,” I said, already rising.
Max laughed once, bitter and low. “That’s your plan?”
“No,” I said. “That’s my promise.”
Lightning forked across the sky, and the ground shook again.
The heartbeat beneath us beat faster.
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Chapter 152
Max stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Nate… if we do this, there’s a chance we don’t make it back.”
I met his gaze. “Then we don’t come back.”
Bastain swallowed hard, still clutching the scroll. “She has to know.”
“She does,” I said.
“She needs to choose,” he pressed. “If Kael reaches that Gate first, she won’t get the chance. The Gate will choose for her.”
I looked back toward the split in the ground. The violet light swelled again, brighter this time. Stronger. Like it could feel our decision hanging in the air.
And the scar at my chest flared once more–answering.
Max turned toward his horse. “I’ll get Ethan. We move before dawn.”
I didn’t speak.
Just knelt again beside the crack, pressed my palm to the soil.
And whispered.
“Hold on, Jiselle.”
A breeze stirred the edge of the gorge.
Soft at first.
Then sharper.
The flame that rose from the fissure curled once, forming a shape.
A name.
Hers.
62
And beneath it-
Another pulse.
A sound so low, so ancient, I almost missed it.
But I knew what it was.
A call.
From the other side.
Waiting to be answered.
By the threshold.
By the flame.
By her.
And time… was running out.
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
