Chapter 233
Jiselle
“Where is she?”
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My voice cracked against the hollow chamber, raw and frantic, though I already knew the answer. The air was too still. The cradle too empty. The bond inside me–a constant thread of flame–felt stretched thin, almost translucent. Solara was gone.
Nate was already tearing through the room, his hands sweeping aside every blanket, every charm, every mark we’d laid down to keep her safe. Ethan leaned against the doorway, pale and shaking, sweat rolling down his face. His eyes flickered gold and then dimmed again, like the Gate had left its echo inside him. Eva pressed her palms to the floor, whispering prayers through clenched teeth.
But prayers couldn’t explain what my body already knew.
“She left,” I whispered.
Nate froze. His head snapped up, fury burning in his eyes. “What do you mean, she left? She’s a child. She-”
“She’s not just a child,” I said, every syllable trembling but sure. “She chose.”
The room went silent.
The leyline beneath us pulsed once, a slow, deliberate heartbeat that didn’t belong to the earth. It belonged to her.
And then the light came.
It split the room in two, violet and gold, a blade of radiance that shimmered through the floorboards, through our bones, through the very air. Nate grabbed my arm to steady me, his voice low and desperate. “Jiselle-”
But the words drowned as the flame expanded, swallowing the walls, the ceiling, everything, until all I could see was light.
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I was standing in the Gate again.
Not broken. Not fractured. Whole.
Its pillars rose higher than mountains, its arch burning with a flame that didn’t scorch but sang. The air itself was alive, thrumming with power older than gods, older than wolves. And in the center of it–her.
Solara.
No longer the baby I had cradled. No longer the toddling girl who whispered truths too sharp for innocence. She was older now, maybe seven, maybe eight, her hair darker, her eyes brighter. She stood tall, unafraid, her small hands clasped in front of her like she understood every inch of this place.
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Chapter 233
My heart splintered. “Solara?”
She turned, and the look in her eyes silenced me.
Wisdom. Fire. Something more.
“Mama,” she said softly, her voice steady, calm. “I had to.”
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Nate’s hand brushed mine–though I realized he wasn’t really beside me. He was anchored in another shard of the vision, watching, not touching. Ethan too. All of us pulled into this trial of hers.
I stepped forward, but the ground shifted, flame licking between us like a warning. Solara raised her hand. “Don’t. This is mine.”
“You don’t belong here!” The words ripped out of me before I could stop them. “You’re just ” My throat closed. She wasn’t just anything. Not anymore.
“I needed to see,” she said simply. “The first one. The one who came before.”
The Gate pulsed, and around her, shadows moved. Not Hollow–born. Not wolves. Memories. Fragments of every Sovereign who had ever touched the Gate. Their faces flickered–Serina’s sharp profile, the broken gaze of the ones who had fallen, the hollow eyes of those who had tried to rule instead of refuse.
And then one form stepped forward.
The first.
Not Serina. Not Aedric. Older still. A woman cloaked in white ash, her hair braided with flame, her gaze steady as the earth. She carried no crown. No blade. Only a single ember cupped in her hands.
Solara tilted her head, listening to words I could not hear.
“What is she saying?” I demanded, the panic clawing up my throat.
Solara turned back to me, her eyes gleaming. “She said they all made the wrong choice. And she showed me what happens if I do too.”
“What happens?” Nate’s voice rang out across the chamber.
Solara’s lip trembled then steadied. “The world burns until nothing remembers why.”
The Gate roared, the sound so loud my bones shook. Ethan fell to his knees, clutching his chest, gasping as though the fire itself had crawled back inside him. I wanted to run to him, to grab Solara, to tear her away from this place, but the fire between us wouldn’t let me. It forced me to watch.
Solara reached for the ember.
The woman in white placed it into her hands.
And for one heartbeat–one terrible heartbeat–I thought I had lost her. That she would vanish into the Gate,
that she would become flame instead of flesh.
Chapter 233
But she didn’t.
She turned, Walked toward me.
And with each step, the light dimmed.
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By the time she reached the edge of the Gate, she was herself again–my daughter, my child. Still small. Still whole. Her hair tangled, her cheeks flushed, her chest rising and falling with human breath.
She placed the ember against her own chest, and it sank into her skin, vanishing beneath her sternum.
And then she spoke.
“I saw the first Sovereign.”
***
The light shattered, splintering like glass under pressure, and suddenly we were back in the stronghold.
The air reeked of smoke and stone dust, the floor cracked open in jagged lines that glowed faintly as though the leyline itself had torn to the surface.
The walls trembled around us, each shudder groaning like the bones of the mountain, and the cradle in the corner–empty, so achingly empty–stood as proof that nothing was as it had been moments before.
Solara stood in the center of the chamber. Not the infant I had nursed, not the toddling girl whose laughter carried through the halls, but something older.
Her shoulders squared as if she carried more than her own weight, her gaze deep and unyielding. In her eyes burned something no child should ever hold, a wisdom sharpened by fire and a burden too heavy for flesh that young.
Nate’s voice trembled, raw and broken, as he stepped forward. “What did she do?”
Eva’s hand rose to her lips, her knuckles white against her pale skin as her whisper broke into the silence. “Gods help us.”
Ethan jerked upright, his chest heaving, his voice too loud for the stillness. “What did she see?”
But Solara didn’t look at them. She didn’t even blink. Her gaze found mine–only mine–as if she had carried the answer back from that place just to place it in my hands.
“She chose,” she whispered, her voice steady, cerie in its calm. “And now I know how.”
The leyline answered her words. Its flame surged, no longer subtle, no longer hidden beneath the stone, but alive, racing in violent streams through the cracks, spilling its heat into the chamber.
The ground thrummed like a living heart, each pulse setting the air alight, each breath of it reminding us that power didn’t sleep—it only waited.
And then the wall behind her split. Not slowly, not with the hesitation of stone loosening from its age, but
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Chapter 288
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with a thunderous crack that tore the foundation apart. We braced against the force as the rock groaned and peeled away.
What spread open was not the Hollow. It was not the canyon.
It was sky,
A vast, burning expanse of sky, roiling with flame, clouds split open like wounds, the horizon glowing as though the world itself had been overturned,
The Gate stood revealed again, not as a door, but as an endless scar across creation.
And Solara–my daughter, my flame–stood at its center.
The Gate wasn’t reaching for me this time. It wasn’t reaching for Nate or Ethan or any of us.
It was waiting for her.
AD
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Cedella is a passionate storyteller known for her bold romantic and spicy novels that keep readers hooked from the very first chapter. With a flair for crafting emotionally intense plots and unforgettable characters, she blends love, desire, and drama into every story she writes. Cedella’s storytelling style is immersive and addictive—perfect for fans of heated romances and heart-pounding twists.
