bChapter /bb185 /b

*Jiselle*

The mirror felt heavier than it should have. It was small enough to fit in my palm, no bigger than a dagger de, but it pulsed with a weight I couldn’t exin. Its frame was carved obsidian, etched with runes that glowed faintly in the cavern light, threaded with lines of moonstone like veins under pale skin. The surface wasn’t ss–not truly. It shimmered, liquid and dark, as if it held not reflection, but memory.

The trader who handed it to me had vanished the moment my fingers touched it. No scent. No sound, One blink, and the space where he’d stood was empty. Even the moss near the entrance of the cavern had gone still, like the presence of that man–or whatever he was–had temporarily unsettled bthe /b

life here.

I stood in the center of the cavern for a long time, staring down at the mirror, feeling the hum of it vibrate through my bones. Nate hadn’t returned yet from the far ridge where he’d gone with Bastain to reinforce the outer boundary spells. I was alone, and I didn’t want to be. Not this time. But I couldn’t wait either. The mirror pulsed again, and this time I knew it was calling to me.

I stepped toward the spring–that quiet pool we always came back to–and knelt beside it. The stones there were still warm from the leyline beneath bthe /bsurface. The water shimmered faintly. Everything inside me buzzed.

I lifted the mirror.

bTook /ba slow breath.

And looked.

At first, I saw only darkness. Then… light began to bloom inside the ss. Not my reflection. Not even close. What stared back at me was taller than I was, more fluid in shape, more me than flesh. Its eyes were not green–they were gxies. Starbursts of violet and silver. Its skin shimmered like obsidian ss, edges rippling, breaking and forming again with each breath it didn’t take.

It was beautiful.

And terrifying.

And I knew.

It was the child.

Not an infant. Not a babe swaddled in cloth and moonlight. It was the essence of what I carried, rendered in divine shadow. A being of promise and destruction, wrapped in ancient will and pulsing silence. It didn’t speak. It didn’t need to.

Because I felt everything it wanted to say inside me.

The Gate didn’t close. I did.

I dropped the mirror.

It hit the stone floor with a sharp tter, rolling once before settling at the edge of the spring. I backed away, breath shuddering, hand pressed over my

chest like that might contain the scream wing its way up my throat.

My knees gave out. I sank to the floor, shaking. Not from pain. From realization.

I was never meant to survive this.

I was the Sovereign of Smoke.

And smoke, by its nature, is what’s left after/something burns.

Chapter b185 /b

I don’t know how blong /bI sat there.

I only moved when I heard boots on stone. Nate. His footsteps slowed as he nearedb, /band I knew the exact bmoment /bhe bsaw /bbme/b. bHis /bbbreath /bbcaught /b( crouched beside me in a heartbeat, hands on my shoulders, then cradling my face.

“Jis? What happened? What did you see?”

bI /bcouldn’t answer.

I pressed my forehead against his corbone, trembling. He didn’t push. Just wrapped me in his arms and held me there. The bmirror /bby /bbbetween /bus band /bthe spring, untouched. But I could feel its presence. Still humming. Still waiting.

“It wasn’t me,” I whispered eventually. “It was them. The child. But not like a child. Like something that remembers fire. Like something that was fire

He stroked my hair, grounding me with slow breaths.

“They looked back at me, Nate. Like they’d already seen the end of all this. Like they knew what I would choose before I did. Like I’m not bjust /bbcarrying /bthem, I’m carrying whates after.”

He didn’t respond immediately. I felt him inhale, slow and deliberate, before he eased me back enough to look into my eyes.

“Then we choose together.”

bI /bsearched his face. “What if choosing them means losing myself?”

He framed my face with both hands. “Then I’ll burn too.”

The words dropped like an anchor.

He didn’t mean them in despair. He meant them as devotion. As defiance. As the clearest promise he could make: that no matter how deep this went, how far it dragged us into ancient truths and me–slick futures, he would not leave me to walk it alone.

My chest ached.

Not from fear.

From love.

I leaned into him and kissed him. Not forfort. For connection. For rity. He kissed me back like I was thest thing keeping him human. Like I was more than a prophecy, more than a gate, more than the fire blooming inside me.

We didn’t speak after that. Words had done all they could.

We undressed each other slowly, not with hunger, but reverence. Every brush of skin was a prayer. Every sigh ba /bconfession. Heid me down near the spring, where the heat of the leyline met the cool air of the cavern. His body folded around mine like a shield, like a vow.

And in that space, we didn’t make love.

We became it.

It wasn’t about the rush of sensation or the frantic burn of desperate limbs. It was steady. Powerful. A slow, aching union of soul and bodyb. /bbHis /bbmouth /bmapped promises over my skin. My hands tangled in his hair like anchors. He moved inside me like he had nowhere else to bbe/bb, /blike the bworld /bbcould /bend around us and he wouldn’t look away.

And maybe it did.

Maybe the world ended.

bAnd /brestarted with every beat bof /bour hearts.

b16:01 /bbFri/bb, /b18 bJul /bJ

When we copsed into stillness, his arms wrapped tightly around me, I rested my ear over his chest band /bblistened /bbto /bbthe /bbrhythm /bthere, Strong

Familiar.

His thumb traced circles on my back. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t need to.

For the first time since the Gate copsed, I slept..

When I woke, the air had changed.

It was hotter. Thicker. And I couldn’t move.

Not because I was restrained. But because my body was trembling, slick with sweat, and something beneath my skin was bglowing/b.

Nate stirred beside me.

“Jiselle?”

My breath caught. I sat up, the nket falling away, revealing the skin of my abdomen. The light beneath it pulsed.

Not golden.

Not silver.

But violet.

The rune–the one seared into Nate’s palm–was now glowing through my skin, mirroring his exactly. My veins shimmered faintly, like starlight had bbee /bpoured into them.

Nate scrambled up, eyes wide. He reached for my hand, for my stomachb, /bfor me.

“What is that?”

I couldn’t answer.

I felt the leyline beneath the cavern begin to rise.

Its rhythm matched the pulsing glow in my abdomen. Each beat was an echo. Each pulse a signal.

Something had been triggered.

And whatever the mirror had shown me–whatever I had carried into the dark with open arms–was no longer content bto /bbisleep/i/b.

It was bing.

And I was bing with it.