My Greate Husband 231

Chapter 231 

*Jiselle* 

The wind cut sharper here. 

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It wasn’t the clean mountain air of the stronghold, or the damp, heavy drafts from the Hollow. It was a bitter wind, threaded with ash and memory, the kind that scraped your lungs raw as though it wanted you to remember what had burned. 

We stood before what was left of the Academy. 

The walls had collapsed long ago, melted stone hardened into jagged peaks that jutted skyward like broken ribs. The courtyard was unrecognizable except for the faint outline of where the fountain once stood, its basin shattered and filled with blackened rainwater. Every step crunched over glass and bone and splintered remnants of the life we once thought eternal. 

“This is where it started,” I whispered, though no one needed reminding. 

Nate moved at my side, quiet as shadow, his hand brushing the hilt of his sword out of habit, though there was no sound but the wind. Ethan lingered a few paces behind, his eyes haunted, as if every step was a punishment for sins he had yet to name. And Eva walked even further back, lips moving silently, prayers spilling into the fractured earth. 

But it was Solara who carried us forward. 

She toddled across the rubble as though it were smooth grass, her small feet steady even when the stones shifted beneath her. Light trailed from her touch, faint and flickering, as if she were coaxing the ruins back to life with every step. I wanted to scoop her up, to shield her from this place, but she did not falter. She belonged here. 

We reached what had once been the great hall. Its roof had caved in, pillars cracked and bowed, but the floor remained–scarred stone that bore the weight of too many memories. I felt the pull the moment my foot crossed the threshold. It was not flame. It was not prophecy. It was recognition. 

“Jiselle,” Nate said softly, as though he could feel it too. 

I looked down. 

There, burned into the stone as if carved by the fire of gods themselves, was my name. 

Not written. Not etched. Branded. 

The letters glowed faintly even now, after everything, after years of collapse and ruin. Each line burned into the floor carried with it the weight of what I had been and what I had lost. 

My knees weakened. I sank onto the cold stone, brushing trembling fingers over the letters. The heat that rose from them was not just warmth. It was memory. The sound of my first challenge. The sting of Nate’s absence. The crack of Max’s voice before he fell. Every scar. Every betrayal. Every choice. 

And still, my name remained. 

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Chapter 231 

“Why does it still burn?” Ethan’s voice was hoarse, cautious, as if he feared the answer. 

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“Because she was always meant to be here,” Bastain’s voice carried from behind, though I hadn’t noticed his approach. “The stone remembers. And the stone never lies.” 

I looked back at Solara. She had stopped just short of the letters, her head tilted, her eyes glowing faintly violet as though she understood what was written there. Slowly, she lowered herself to the floor, pressing one small hand to the ground beside mine. 

The heat shifted. 

Not weaker. Not stronger. Changed. 

Her light threaded into mine, a second pulse weaving over the letters until something new began to form. 

Beneath my name, a second one appeared. 

Not written in my hand. Not spoken aloud. But alive. 

Solara. 

The stone did not resist. It accepted her name as though it had been waiting for it all along, the letters blooming across the cracked floor in molten gold edged with violet, their light spilling into the shadows until even the ash stirred and trembled. 

The earth itself seemed to bow in acknowledgment, groaning under the weight of something ancient and binding. 

Eva’s breath caught before she sank to her knees, both hands pressed to her chest, her lips forming the words like a prayer and a warning all at once. “The second flame…” 

Nate drew in a sharp breath, his body taut with tension, but when he turned to look at me and then at the child crouched over the burning names, there was no fear in his eyes for the first time in weeks. Only awe. Awe so raw it made my chest ache. 

But awe was dangerous. 

Because as the names settled into the stone, a low tremor rippled through the ruins. It wasn’t the sharp crack of battle or the violent surge of uncontrolled flame. It was deeper, older, rolling through the ground as if the very bones of the earth had begun to stir. 

Dust poured down in soft showers from the rafters, and the fractured beams above groaned like they were remembering the fire that had destroyed them once already. Cracks splintered outward from the letters carved into the floor, spreading in jagged veins until the entire hall seemed to pulse with an unstable 

heartbeat. 

And still, Solara didn’t move. 

Her tiny hand pressed flat to the stone, her eyes wide and fixed, glowing faintly with the same gold–violet light now spilling from the floor. Her body trembled, but not with fear. With certainty. With belonging. 

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Chapter 231 

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“Jiselle,” Nate barked, stepping forward, urgency cutting through the awe. “Take her hand off–now.” 

I dropped to my knees beside her, reaching for her wrist. Gods, I tried, but the moment my skin brushed hers the truth slammed into me. 

The bond wasn’t in her grip–it was in her blood. The leyline wasn’t beneath us anymore. It was through her, woven into every breath she took, every beat of her heart. She wasn’t pressing her hand into the stone. She was anchoring it. Claiming it. 

The tremors grew sharper, shaking the hall hard enough that Ethan stumbled, shouting words I couldn’t make out through the roar of shifting stone. 

Eva’s voice rose over it, desperate and fierce, her prayers spilling so fast they tangled in her throat, each plea clawing at the air for mercy that would not come. 

And then- 

The floor split open. 

A crack tore down the center of the hall, slicing through both names burned into the stone. Light bled from 

it, violent and blinding, until I had to throw up an arm to shield my eyes. The names glowed brighter still, too bright to bear, as if the fire of their truth could not be contained by stone or prophecy. 

And from that crack, something rose. 

Not Aedric’s voice. Not the Hollow’s wail. Not even Serina’s familiar echo. 

This was older. 

Deeper. 

It rumbled up from the marrow of the world itself, filling the hall with a resonance that rattled my bones and clawed at my chest. 

“Names bind. Names burn. Names end.” 

The last word hit like a hammer. 

And the hall gave way. 

Stone screamed as it split. Pillars collapsed in showers of sparks. The floor buckled and fell beneath us, swallowing ash, light, and memory in one deafening roar as the world we had known cracked open, demanding a new one be born. 

9:03 Wed, Oct 1