Chapter 237
*Jiselle*
The fire didn’t burn anymore.
It sang.
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230 ouchers
The battlefield, the sky, the very marrow of the leyline pulsed with a resonance that was no longer destruction but release. I lay on the cracked stone, chest heaving, Nate’s hand locked around mine, while the light pouring from Solara bent the world into something new.
I should have been afraid. I should have been broken. But as I raised my eyes and saw her standing there- small, radiant, cloaked in both ash and memory–I understood.
The Gate was closing.
And it was closing through her.
“Jiselle,” Nate whispered, his voice hoarse. His thumb brushed across my knuckles, desperate and shaking. “It’s ending.”
But I wasn’t so sure. Because when Solara opened her mouth, the voice that spilled out didn’t belong to my child.
“You remembered us.”
Serina.
Her voice echoed through Solara’s body, layered with others, Sovereigns long dead, each one woven into a chorus of memory. My heart stuttered, breaking and mending all at once.
Solara lifted her hands higher. Light streaked outward, weaving through the cracks in the ground, sealing them with gold. For centuries, the curse had demanded sacrifice, demanded blood. But now, for the first time, the leyline drank memory instead. It drank love.
The mark along my spine–burning for so long I had forgotten what it felt like to be free of it–flared once more. Then it dimmed. Then it was gone.
I gasped, slumping into Nate’s chest, tears spilling freely as I clawed at my back. Smooth. Clean. Bare. “It’s gone,” I whispered. “The Sovereign’s mark is gone.”
Nate stared at me like he didn’t believe it, like he couldn’t trust his own eyes. But then he gritted his teeth and tore at his shirt, exposing his chest. His own mark–the rune that had bound him to me, to the Gate, to this entire cycle–glowed faintly. Then it flickered. And then, with one last surge of light, it too vanished.
His lips parted. His body shook. He let out a strangled laugh, half–disbelieving, half–shattered with relief. He cupped my face in both hands and kissed me so hard it nearly undid me. “It’s over,” he said against my lips. “Jiselle, it’s over.”
But above us, Solara’s glow only grew brighter.
9:29 Thu, Oct 2
Chapter 237
And the curse wasn’t finished speaking.
零列
The Hollow–born screamed one final time.
Not in rage. Not in hunger. But in surrender. Their twisted forms crumbled as the Gate sealed itself shut, light ripping through the canyon and collapsing the tether that had kept them bound to this realm. The sky split with one last crack of thunder, then stilled.
The fire burned out. The smoke began to thin.
And all that was left was silence.
I pulled myself to my feet, leaning against Nate’s steady grip, and together we looked across the battlefield. Ash covered everything–wolves, stone, broken banners. The coalition staggered to their knees, weapons slack in their hands. They weren’t cheering. They weren’t howling. They were simply breathing, as if for the first time in centuries, survival had finally arrived.
Solara knelt in the center of the stone, small shoulders heaving. Her light dimmed slowly, pulsing weaker, but steady. And through her lips came Serina’s voice one last time.
“The cycle ends. You chose not to kill. You chose not to reign. You chose to love. Remember us. That is enough.”
And then the voice faded.
Only my daughter remained.
She fell forward, collapsing into my arms, her tiny body hot and trembling but alive. Alive. I pressed her to my chest, sobbing into her hair. “You did it,” I whispered fiercely. “You broke it. You ended it.”
Nate held us both, his forehead pressed to mine, his tears mingling with mine. For the first time, there was no fire between us. Only peace.
The last Hollow–born–the one who had led the charge, wings of bone and eyes of nothing—staggered forward through the thinning smoke. Coalition wolves braced for a final strike, but it never came.
Because it wasn’t a monster anymore.
The shadows peeled back, burned away, revealing a wolf beneath–emaciated, scarred, but wolf. He collapsed to his knees, his voice broken. “Free,” he croaked. “At last… free.”
Ethan stumbled from the ground, pale and bloodied but alive. He gripped my shoulder, his eyes wide with awe. “You didn’t destroy them,” he rasped. “You released them.”
Eva fell to her knees in the ash, staring up at the sky where the stars realigned, brighter than I’d ever seen. Tears streamed down her face. “It’s done,” she whispered. “The curse is undone.”
Bastain, old and unshakable even in battle, pressed both hands over his face. And for the first time since I had known him, he wept. Not for loss. Not for failure. But for the miracle of survival.
9:29 Thu, Oct 2
Chapter 237
The world had shifted. The fire that had devoured everything only hours before was finally gone, smothered by ash and silence.
The smoke that had choked the skies drifted apart in pale ribbons until the stars broke through again, clear and unbroken. And for a fragile, breathless moment, it seemed as though peace had at last come to us.
I almost let myself believe it. Almost.
But then the ground stirred beneath my feet. Not with the chaos of battle or the fury of fire, but with a pulse. A single tremor. Small, subtle, as if the earth itself had taken one slow breath. It should have been nothing, a shift in the stone, the kind of thing you ignore after so much ruin. Yet I knew better. It was enough.
My entire body locked. I drew Solara closer to my chest, her warmth pressed to my heart, my arms tightening protectively as a thread of dread crawled back through my veins. I had thought I was empty of fear, that the fire had burned it all away. But the tremor reminded me that survival was never so simple.
Nate felt it too. His body stiffened beside me, his hand instinctively reaching for his weapon, though what sword could cut through what we had just faced? His eyes searched mine, and in them I saw the same dread mirrored back at me.
Ethan’s jaw clenched, his shoulders coiled like a wolf ready to meet another fight even when he could barely stand. His knuckles whitened as he steadied himself against the broken stone, and his breath came fast, sharp, ready for a battle none of us had the strength left to face.
Eva’s pendant, cracked from the force of her rites, flickered weakly against her chest. She pressed a hand to it, her lips parting as if she meant to pray, though no words left her mouth. The silence was heavier than any battle cry.
And then it came.
In the stillness that followed, in the stretch of air that seemed to hold its breath along with us, we heard it. It was deep, hollow and distant yet undeniable. It echoed not through our ears but through our bones, through the leyline itself.
A heartbeat.
It was the Gate’s.
AD
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.
