Chapter 186
Chapter 186
*Jiselle*
The heat didn’t fade. It rolled through me in waves, thick and electric, until my breath came ragged and my skin felt too small to hold what was happening beneath it. The violet glow shimmered beneath my abdomen, each pulse syncing with something deeper–the leyline under the cavern floor. It wasn’t just me anymore. The ground, the air, the magic in this place… it all beat with the same rhythm. My rhythm. Or theirs.
Nate held me upright, one arm wrapped tight around my back, his other hand hovering over the glowing rune like he could force it to stop by sheer will could hear the frantic edge of his breathing against my ear, could feel the tremor in his arms, but his voice stayed steady when he finally spoke..
“I’m here. I’ve got you. Just hold on to me.”
I clutched his shirt, nails biting through the fabric. It wasn’t pain coursing through me–not entirely. It was becoming. Something vast and endless moving beneath my skin, stretching, claiming space it had been waiting for. My thoughts spiraled: Was this what motherhood was meant to feel like? Or was this the Hollow–Born infection Eva feared, bloorning where a child should have been?
A thunderous hum rattled the cavern walls. The leyline swelled, each beat echoing through my bones. A shimmer of silver dust rose from the stone floor, caught in a spiral of unseen wind. I swore the cavern whispered my name–but not mine. Something close. Something older. Something waiting to be born from the syllables.
Nate swore under his breath. “I’m getting Bastain.”
I shook my head sharply, gripping him tighter. “Don’t leave.”
He hesitated for only a second before yelling for help, his voice carrying like a command to the air itself. Moments later, footsteps thundered in the distance. Bastain arrived first, robes disheveled, his face pale as his eyes fell on the rune glowing violently through my skin.
Behind him came Ethan, wide–eyed and tense, followed by Eva who froze near the entrance, her breath hitching as though she had seen this before. Or dreamed it.
“First awakening,” Bastain whispered. “Sovereign Key.”
I tried to speak but my throat tightened, choked by the hum of power. The rune on my skin burned brighter, violet flaring toward white at the edges. It wasn’t mine. It was theirs. A calling card, a declaration. Something alive in my womb announcing itself to the world.
Eva stumbled closer, her eyes glassy with a distant light. “Don’t answer,” she breathed. “Whatever you hear, don’t answer. It’s trying to name itself. If you give it your voice, you give it the door.”
A sound curled at the edge of my mind then. Soft. Gentle. Almost sweet. Like a child’s laugh tangled in a whisper. It stretched syllables I almost recognized, shaping them like clay, tugging at me to repeat them. I clamped my lips shut, shaking my head violently as tears blurred my vision. My own instincts screamed to answer, to comfort this thing inside me begging to be known.
Nate’s hand tightened on mine, grounding me like an anchor in a violent storm, “Stay with me, Jis. Don’t let it take you.”
The rune seared fully into my skin, the heat spilling up my chest like molten gold. I arched forward with a broken sound, feeling the magic bite into flesh and bone, carving itself permanent. The leyline beneath the cavern roared to life, a low, thrumming pulse that matched the glow now burning steady on my abdomen.
The pulse grew stronger, each beat sending tremors through the floor, shaking pebbles loose from the cavern ceiling. My breath came in short, panicked gasps, tears streaming down my cheeks as I clung to Nate like he was the only thing tethering me to this world. The hum built into a low, resonant chant in my bones, like countless unseen voices were calling not just to me, but to the being inside me.
Bastain stepped closer, his hands weaving spells in the air, sigils glowing briefly before flickering out as if something more powerful devoured them. “This is no ordinary surge,” he muttered. “It’s a claim. The leytine recognizes it, bends to it.”
Ethan’s fists clenched, torn between fear and rage. “And we’re just standing here letting it happen?”
“What do you want me to do?” Bastain snapped, sweat beading his brow. “This power is older than anything I can counter. It’s choosing its place in the
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Chapter 186
world?
Eva’s eyes darted between me and the glowing rune, terror and awe battling in her expression. “Jiselle, keep fighting it Hold on to yourself.
The whispers grew louder. Not words I knew, but sounds that curved into meaning deep in my gut. Names forming like smoke, trying to coax my lips to shape them. My mouth trembled, every instinct aching to respond. To know the thing I carried. To give it what it wanted most: a name.
But Nate’s grip tightened, his forehead pressing against mine, his voice a growl of raw devotion. “No. Don’t let it in. Whatever it wants, it doesn’t get you.
Not like this.”
I clung to his voice, repeating his words in my mind until they drowned out the call. My tears burned hot, my body shaking as if resisting gravity itself. And then–suddenly–the rune flared one last time, blindingly bright, before dimming to a low, steady glow. The cavern fell silent except for the ragged gasps
of breath filling the air.
For a heartbeat, I thought it was over.
Then a whisper slipped through, clearer than before, curling through my mind like smoke and ash:
“Sovereign… open the door.”
And I knew this wasn’t the end. It was the beginning of something that would tear the world open.
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.
