09:08 wea,
Chapter 155
Chapter 155
*Jiselle‘
The morning felt wrong.
Too quiet, too clear. The air was sharp with that unnatural stillness that comes just before something breaks–like the world itself was holding its breath.
I wrapped my arms around myself, pacing the worn edges of the veilfire gorge, the scar on my back pulsing steadily like a second heartbeat. The rune, hadn’t stopped glowing since the night before. It shimmered beneath my skin in faint flashes, whispering a language I didn’t know but somehow
understood.
And I could feel it.
Kael.
Not in the bond–he had no part of me that way. But in the leyline. In the pulse of the world.
He was moving.
And somehow, even before Serina appeared again, I knew she would come.
She stepped into the clearing like a shadow rising from light, her steps soundless, her presence folding around the edges of mine. She didn’t greet me.
She didn’t smile.
She looked tired.
More tired than the last time.
More haunted.
“Serina,” I said, turning to her, heart thudding in my throat.
“You felt it,” she said quietly. “The shift.”
I nodded.
“It’s accelerating.”
“What is?” My voice was hoarse. “The Gate?”
Serina turned her gaze to the horizon, where the mountain spine split like a cracked tooth. “No,” she said. “The world. The balance. The cycle.”
I didn’t understand–but I didn’t stop her.
“Every era has its fulcrum,” she said. “Moments that tip the scale too far. Fire grows, or shadow spreads. Death thickens, or magic thins. When it tilts something awakens. Something that was never meant to be seen.”
I swallowed. “The Gate?”
She nodded once. “But it’s not just a door, Jiselle/That’s what we got wrong. It’s a cycle. A wound that never fully heals. It chooses a vessel. A body. A mind. And when it’s done with them, it moves on.”
I stared at her. “You were its vessel once.”
Her eyes dimmed. “Yes, And I failed it. I tried to close it before I was ready. I wasn’t strong enough. So it burned through me and sealed itself… until you.
I stepped back. “You think it’s choosing again?”
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09:08 Wed, 11 Jun W
Chapter 155
“No,” Serina said, and this time her voice held a weight I didn’t recognize.
“I think it already chose.”
I opened my mouth–but no words came. Because deep down, I already knew what she was saying. I had known since the first time the flame answered Bebefore I called.
I had been born into this.
Bred from fire and silence and prophecy half erased.
“How do I stop it?” I asked.
She looked at me, truly looked at me, and her voice cracked with something more human than magic. “Maybe you don’t. Maybe that’s not the point.
My breath hitched. “Then what is?”
“To choose what kind of vessel you’ll be. Passive or purposeful. Destruction or bridge.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. My thoughts raced–Nate’s voice in the night, Ethan’s hands bloody from trying to hold the world together, Eva watching me with both hope and heartbreak, Max pretending not to took, but always looking. The weight of all of them burned against my ribs.
“What about Kael?” I whispered.
Serina’s face darkened. “He’s not trying to open the Gate. He’s trying to become it. Fuse with it. Take it into himself and rewrite the balance.”
“But why?”
“Because he thinks the world will destroy itself if someone doesn’t bind the flame to will. And maybe he’s right. But he’s not the one meant to hold it.”
“Then who is?” I asked.
“You already know.”
We stood in silence.
The air grew heavier.
And then she turned without a word, walking toward the cliff edge behind the gorge. I followed her down the winding trail, the wind sharpening with every step.
She led me to a flame ring I’d never seen before.
Old.
Blackened.
Lined with runes 1 didn’t recognize–except for one, at the center, half–erased and burned into the ground: mine.
It was shaped not like a name, but a warning.
“This is where it began,” Serina said softly. “The first time the Gate chose.”
I stepped closer, my boots brushing against soot and blood. The ground still stank of something ancient. Not rot. Not decay.
Sacrifice.
The circle had been drawn in blood.
09.00
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E
Chapter 155
Fresh blood.
My skin tingled. My flame flared once in recognition.
“He was here,” I whispered.
Serina didn’t answer.
I stepped fully into the ring.
And everything shifted.
The world collapsed inward.
Not like falling.
Like sinking.
.Sinking into memory not my own–into something carved in bone and fire and shadow.
I blinked.
And I was somewhere else.
Not truly, but in spirit.
A place burning.
A dome of ash and fire and magic held together by willpower alone. A circle surrounded me, glowing embers spiraling around a center flame–and in that center, twisting in a storm of scarlet and violet-
Kael.
Or what was left of him.
He floated in midair, limbs unbound, head tilted back, eyes white–hot with power.
Flame curled up his arms like tattoos, licking at the edges of his jaw, his throat, his chest. And around him–twelve runes burned into the floor. Only one glowed.
Mine.
His voice hit me before his mouth moved.
it echoed from the walls of that memory. From the ring. From the flame.
Jiselle.
I stumbled back. The flame didn’t burn me, but it held me. Caught me in the chest like a hand made of fire and longing.
You came.
He turned his head slowly, eyes opening fully. Not white now.
Violet.
Just like mine.
“We began this together,” he said, and his voice was like silk unraveling. “End it with me.”
09:08 Wed, 11 Jun
Chapter 155
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t speak.
Because part of me–some twisted, broken piece buried beneath power and prophecy and choice–remembered.
Not him.
Not truly.
But something like him.
The feeling of being tethered.
Of being watched.
Of being needed.
. I looked down.
The blood–lined flame ring still burned.
My rune at the center.
And all around me, the wind carried Kael’s voice–not spoken. Not summoned.
Invoked.
E
“We were never meant to survive this world, Jiselle,” he said. “We were meant to shape what came after.”
And beneath his words, the Gate pulsed.
Like it was listening.
Like it agreed.
I pressed my hands to my temples, trying to shove the vision away, to shut it out, but it wouldn’t go.
Not this time.
This was no illusion.
This was a call.
And it wasn’t over.
Not until one of us answered.
AD
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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.
