bChapter /bb146 /b

Jiselle*

The messenger came at dawn.

He didn’t wear armor or wield a de. No threat in his posture, no challenge in his hands. Just robes the color of old parchment and a symbol pressed over his heart: the empty circle. It wasn’t inked. It had been burned in, branded so deep the skin around it gleamed with scar tissue and silence

He didn’t speak at first.

He simply stepped into the clearing like he belonged there–like the valley had already been given to him in some forgotten bargain. Max moved to intercept him, a snarl coiled behind his eyes, but Bastain raised a hand. One gesture. One word.

“Wait.”

We waited.

The messenger looked at me and dropped to one knee, pressing his fist to the earth. “The Gatekeeper requests audience with the Etherest Alone

His voice was dry. Dust and gravel. It didn’t echo, and yet it seemed to ring louder than it should’veb. /bBeneath it, I felt the leyline stir–not in resistance, in

recognition.

Nate stiffened beside me. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s a trap,” Eva said immediately. “Who sends a single man into an armed camp unless they know something we don’t?”

“They all know something we don’t,” Bastain muttered, stepping closer, eyeing the man with a schr’s restraint. “You said alone. What kind of terms

are these?”

The messenger looked up at me. Only me.

“Veil–fire,” he said. “The Gatekeeper will meet her at the threshold of the valley. Beneath me and stone. No weapons. No allies. No lies.”

“And if I refuse?” I asked.

His expression didn’t change. “Then he burns thend.”

Ethan cursed softly behind me. Max took another step forward, but I raised a hand. Not to stop them. To steady myself. Because my power had started to

hum again.

Not burst. Notsh.

Just hum.

Like it recognized something in this moment.

“Tell him,” I said slowly, “I ept.”

Nate turned toward me, jaw clenched. “Jiselle-”

“But I go on my terms,” I continued, my voice steady despite the heat climbing my spine. “You’ll tell him the Ethereal will meet him under weil bfire/bb, /bbbut /bthe ce and time are hers to choose. No exceptions.”

The messenger tilted his head. “He will not ept conditions.”

“He already has,” I said. “By sending you.”

b1/6 /b

bUY.UY /b

??

He paused. Then gave a single nod and stood. No parting word. No threat. He simply turned and walked Back toward the wunds like he had pa delivered a line of fire to our doorstep.

When he vanished past the treeline, I turned to Bastain.

“Where’s the closest veil–fire point?”

He frowned. “There’s a gorge two miles east. The leyline cuts directly through it. If you fight your me there, it’ll reach the rest of the valley in under a minute.”

“Then that’s where I’ll meet him.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Nate said, voice low, intense. “Not even for showi./ii” /i

“I won’t be alone,” I answered. “Not really.”

He stared at me. I stared back.

And then he nodded.

Not in approval.

In trust.

“I’ll be just behind the ridge,” he said. “Say the word–hell, think it–and I’ll be there.”

I smiled faintly. “I know.”

I spent the next hour in silence, walking the perimeter of the gorge, letting my feet memorize the terrain. Every root. Every shadow. The canyon itself was shallow at first, but it deepened fast, cut into the world like something ancient had once needed to bleed.

The leyline pulsed beneath it like a second heart.

Eva stayed close while I prepared. She didn’t offer a speech or a lecture. She didn’t treat me like ss. Just handed me the satchel with water, herbs, a small charm for grounding. “For afteri,/ii” /ishe said simply.

I took it. “Thank you.”

“You sure about this?”

“No,” I whispered. “But I’m ready.”

As I turned to go, something tugged at imy /ispine.

Not pain.

Something deeper.

My shoulder des twitched—and then burned.

I gasped and dropped to one knee.

“Jiselle?” Eva’s voice sharpened. She crouched beside me, hand on my arm.

The burn spread across my back like ink beneath the skin. Not heat like fire–heat like memory, My breaths came shortb, /bband /bI wed bat /bthe bback /bbof /bbmy /bshirt. My skin felt electric, as though it had been struck by lightning. As if something inside me was trying to speak bthrough /bbmy /bbbones/b,

Eva’s eyes widened. “Jiselle—your scar.”

bUYTUY /b

bI /bgritted my teeth. “What about it?”

b“/bbIt’s /bglowing.b” /b

bI /bfroze.

Not white.

Not gold.

Not red.

Violet.

She pulled my cor down gently, and I felt her breath catch.

“What does it look like?”

Her voice was soft. “A key. Carved in meb./bb” /b

I stood slowly, ignoring the shaking in my limbs. “Then that’s what I’ll be.“.

The veil–fire was older than the campfires of our people, older than the Academy’s rituals, older than even the first Council scrolls. It wasn’t kindling. It wasn’t natural. It was the raw, flickering line where magic met mortality–and demanded payment.

The wind had changed by the time I reached the gorge.

The air tasted like iron and pine.

I stepped into the circle carved into the dirt by me. Not mine. The Gatekeeper’s messengers had already begun the ritual–silent marks drawn in ash, sigils only half–understood. But I didn’t flinch.

I lit the veil–fire myself.

Not with power.

With presence.

The moment my feet met the circle’s center, the sigils ignited. Violet and white me shot upward in a perfect column–then split, rippling across the clearing in soft, pulsing lines. It didn’t burnb. /bIt shimmered.

I stood in the center.

And waited.

He arrived quietly.

No footsteps.

No fanfare.

bOne /bmoment, I was alone.

bThe /bnext–I wasn’t.

bThe /bGatekeeper stepped from the shadows.

He wore a mask carved from something bone–white. Smooth. Featurelessi. /iHis robes bwere /bbash/bb–/bbgray/bb, /bbstitched /bbwith /bbthread /bbthat /bbshimmered /bbfaintly /bbwhen /bbthe /bveil–fire passed over them. Around his bneck /bhung ba /bsingle shard of obsidian, shaped like ba /bbtooth/b.

He said nothing.

Neither did I.

We stood in stillness.

And then he bowed.

Not deeply. Not out of deference. But like someone acknowledging an equal.

“Ethereal,” he said.

His voice was low. Musical in a way that didn’t belong to any known tongue.

I inclined my head slightly. b“/bGatekeeper.”

We stared at each other for a long beat.

Then he said, “Do you know why wee?”

“To test me. To threaten bnce. To demand my me.”

He tilted his head. “No. Wee for your origin.”

My pulse skipped.

Behind me, I heard nothing–but I felt the tension ripple along the leyline.

“What do you mean?”

“You think your me was born in prophecy,i” /ihe said. “But it was born from breach. From broken chains. Your birth was the answer to a question none of us dared to ask.”

I frowned. “What question?”

He stepped forward once, still inside the veil–fire boundary. “What happens when the Veil tries to protect itself?b” /b

I froze.

He went on. “You are not prophecy. You are instinct. A response. Ast–ditch whisper from the world itself.”

“That’s not possible.”

He smiled beneath the mask–I felt it more than saw it.

“Possible means little when the me answers first.”

I steadied myself. “Why now?”

“Because it stirs again.”

b“/bThe Gate?”

“No,” he said. “The thing behind it.”

bA /bbeat.

Then he whispered, “And it remembers youb./b”

b09:10 /bbTue/bb, /bb3 /bbJun /bbNI /b

bThat /bstopped everything.

Even the fire paused in its rhythm.

Before I could speak, he reached into his robe and pulled out a slip of parchment. A rune was burned into it–half–familiar. It pulsed faintly in my direction, drawn to me like a child reaching for its mother.

b“/bWhat is that?”

He handed it to me.

“Your name,” he said. “The first one.”

“I already have a name.”

He looked at me with something unreadable.

“Do you?”

I didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

Because as the rune touched my hand, something deep in my scar pulsed again–violet and ancient.

My vision swam.

bAnd /bbfor /ba brief, terrible moment-

I saw a woman burning on a cliff.

Her mouth opened.

And my voice came out.

Not my present voice.

But my first.

I dropped the rune. My knees hit the ground.

The Gatekeeper didn’t move.

But his voice came softer now.

“You are not the weapon they forged. You are the memory they buried. And when the gate calls… it will not ask. It will choose.”

I looked up.

Breath ragged. Powershing beneath my skin.

“And what will bit /bchoose?”

bHe /bstepped back, the fire parting for him.

“I bdon’t /bknow.”

Then he vanishedb. /b

b5/6 /b

Like smokeb.. /b

Like dream.

The veil–fire dimmed.

And behind me-

The scar on my back pulsed again.

Harder.

Brighter.

Then split–like something beneath it had begun to wake.

And my knees buckled.

Because whatever wasing… wasn’t just reaching for me.

It was in me.

And it had just turned over.

Like something stretching after a long, long sleep.