Chapter 168
Jiselle
The Gate behind Kael trembled again, shadows flickering like fractured hearts. My own flame–violet and gray–pulsed in my veins and whispered my name. Not just me. Not just flame. Choice,
1 swallowed, feeling the heat of the threshold rise through me. He stood there, Kael, arrogance and longing and ruin intertwined in his eyes,
“You can’t stop what’s already been chosen,” he said. “You only get to decide how it ends.”
My heart hammered, but the bond with Nate steadied me–every beat forging home his promise, his fear, his love. I pressed a hand against the broken. stone wall behind me, grounding myself.
He summoned flame again–but this time, different. Paler. Pulling outward, away. He spoke slowly.
“Fusion is transcendence. We become more than prophecy. We become the Gate’s purpose. Together.”
I wanted to catch that lie and twist it into truth–but Kael wasn’t alone. Across the threshold, stepping forward from starlight and shadow, came a new figure: tall, wrapped in veils of obsidian and ash. A stain of white sigil burned at their throat–the third mark. Their eyes were masked–but their presence was sovereign.
My flame surged again, pulsing toward them. My blood froze.
They raised a hand. Flame curled across their fingertips: violet, gold, white. Three flames. And under that mask, I felt the gate shimmer.
Kael’s words echoed again. “You were never meant to carry this alone.”
I looked from him to this new Sovereign. From the threat to the possibility.
And in that moment, everything fractured.
I stepped forward, not entirely sure whose voice came out of my mouth.
“Who are you?”
The Sovereign held still. The air roiled around us, flames weaving into a hush.
“My name doesn’t matter,” they said, voice measured and filtered. “Not here. Not now. What matters is the sigil.”
They brushed a hand against the third mark on their chest. It flared white and purple, glowing bright enough to reflect in the mask.
I met their gaze. “I have that same call.”
They inclined their head. “We share responsibility, Jiselle Johal.”
I stumbled over my name. My flame dimmed, uncertain. Everything inside me told me this was wrong. But something else–a resonance–kept me
rooted.
A whisper in the fire: Sovereign.
Taste it. Know it. Become it.
Kael stepped forward, flame spiraling outward. “She is one. He is one. You are the third. Fuse with your flame to us, Jiselle.”
My heart lurched. Fuse?
Not just her. My flame. Our destinies. A crown of three.
1/4
Chapter 168
Kael’s hand extended. I could hear Nate’s ragged breath behind me. I could feel his fingers flex. I could hear his longing.
A door slammed inside me.
“No.”
My voice cracked like a broken bell. Flame hammered in my spine.
Kael’s face flickered. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.“.
“What you’re offering is slavery,” I said. “Not sovereignty.”
The air cracked. My flame hissed in my ears.
Kael’s lips curled. “All you know of power is control. But the Gate demands surrender.”
The masked Sovereign took a step forward. Not with malice. With gravity.
“Then perhaps you need to meet the sigil that couldn’t be broken.”
They lowered their hood, revealing hair pale as ash, a scar across one cheek–someone I half–remembered from older visions. Possibly someone I’d met before all this began.
A hand flicked the mask aside entirely–the flame symbol still buried in shadow.
I gasped, pulse spiking.
A face I recognized–Varra.
The woman I’d studied in Council records. The flamebearer who vanished when she tried to seal the last Gate. Some said she died in exile. Some said
she’d gone mad.
But here she was. Flame–haired, hollow–eyed, terrifyingly real.
“Varra,” I whispered.
She didn’t smile. She looked at me with pain. “I am your mirror, in a time that tried to break me. You survived. I became the mark.”
My flame flickered.
I swallowed against the ache. Memories of maps, runes, dry Council halls, nights I’d dreamt of her name. Nights I whispered: Find me.
I stepped forward, closing the distance between us.
Varra raised a pale hand. “You carry what I refused to bear.”
I shivered. “Then let me carry it better.”
Kael laughed abruptly–and flame cracked against the walls.
“You would still wield it alone.”
“No,” I said, rage and sorrow weaving together. I looked at Varra. “But not in thrall to you.”
Varra’s gaze lifted, meeting mine. “I swore once to carry it in service,” she said. “To share the burden.”
Kael shook his head. “Shared burden is a betrayal of destiny. Fusion gives clarity.”
“Fusion gives chain,” I shot back. But my voice wavered under the storm of flame and fear.
Chapter 168
Behind me, steps scraped on stone. I turned–Nate stepped closer.
He laid a hand on my shoulder.
Soft.
Solid.
“Whatever you choose,” he whispered, “I’m with you.”
The world tilted.
Varra reached out with her flame hand, touching Kael’s. They burned together–but then she broke away, flame trailing–as if she’d bitten a chain,
“Three flames,” she said, voice low, tremulous. “One who rules in will. One who rules in force. And one who must rule in heart.”
She looked at me again.
I looked to Nate.
A space opened.
The Gate shivered. Its edges rippling into our world. I felt something stir deep in my bones.
Flame glowed in my palm.
I tasted my name again on the wind.
And then–I heard it.
A voice deeper than flame.
Jiselle Johal.
The Gate called.
Not Kael. Not Varra. Not mortal.
You have the sigils.
You have the choice.
Choose.
Pain cut across my chest like a sword. Three pulses erupted from my flame. Violet. Gold. White.
Words formed in fire, glowing on my palm:
RULE. SHAPE. BECOME.
My breath stopped.
Nate’s hand crushed mine.
“Jis,” he said, voice raw. “We choose you.”
The world hushed around us.
Kael snarled, flames lashing his words: “Then you must reject all of us, and accept only the Gate.”
Varra stepped forward, flame bowed. “I will stand with you–not by force, but by promise”
Nate looked at me, eyes shining with hurt and hope.
The Gate hummed.
The runes pulsed.
And in that crystalline moment, I knew the choice lay in the empty space between us.
Flame trailed from my fingertips.
The Gate leaned toward my flame.
But I didn’t move.
I whispered:
This is my name.
And in that heartbeat-
The Gate answered.
Comment
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.
