Chapter 113
Chapter 113
*Jiselle*
I’d been walking for hours–through tunnels that bled magic, over stond that still held the fingerprints of wolves long dead, deeper and deeper into the veins of the mountain, I didn’t remember making the decision to come here
My feet just moved. My magic pulled, a low throb beneath my skin, guiding me like it had finally stopped resisting and started leading. I should have been afraid. The last time I followed it blindly, it cracked the floor beneath my body and nearly destroyed everything around me.
But this time it felt different.
Quieter.
Not calmer–but certain.
The path narrowed the farther I went. The walls grew smoother, glistening with rune residue, the same kind I saw once in Kael’s private chambers–symbols etched not with power, but with purpose. They hummed low and steady, reacting to me. Not in protest.
In welcome.
I stopped trying to breathe evenly.
I stopped pretending I could turn back.
Because I already knew where I was going.
The leyline nexus.
The gate.
The thing no one talked about, not even in whispers. The place every sovereign before me feared and every enemy of flame had tried to seal. Some said it was a tear in the veil. Others called it a pulse in the world’s heart, a pressure valve between this realm and whatever existed just beyond it.
Kael once said only the flame could find it.
And now I was here.
It didn’t look like a door.
It didn’t even look like magic.
It looked like absence–like a wound in the world. A jagged arc split through the wall of stone, wide enough to step through, but shimmering faintly with white fire. The air around it shimmered with heat but no warmth. A heartbeat thrummed from the core, pulsing once… twice… as if the gate itself was breathing. Or remembering.
The moment I stepped into the chamber, it reacted.
Flames coiled upward along the walls like a crown being drawn in reverse. The runes glowed. The air grew heavy with scent–metal, salt, old ash. I should’ve hesitated.
But I didn’t.
Because for the first time in weeks, I felt seen.
Not by Kael.
Not by the wolves who had started calling me Ember Queen.
But by the fire itself.
It knew me.
And I knew, instinctively, that if I stepped through–if I gave myself over–it would all make sense. The voices, the visions, the power spiraling inside me. Maybe the gate wasn’t an end.
Maybe it was an answer.
I took one step forward.
Then another.
My feet were only inches from the rim of white fire when I heard it.
The sound of someone running.
Footsteps pounding over stone–frantic, raw, real. The magic in the room screamed at the intrusion, the flames recoiling at the speed of the approach. I spun around, heart lurching.
And there he was.
Chapter 113 Nathaniel.
He burst into the chamber like the storm he’d always been–eyes wild, sweat streaked down his temple, chest heaving like he’d fought the entire mountain to reach me. The flames tried to block him.
They didn’t stand a chance.
His magic surged, crashing through the outer rings, flaring not in defiance but in resonance. For a moment, the white fire itself bowed.
And then he saw me.
And I saw him.
And the world stopped burning for a breath.
“Jiselle,” he gasped.
Just my name.
No demands.
No prophecy.
Just a word carved in grief and fury and faith.
I should’ve stepped back.
I should’ve run.
I should’ve screamed at him to leave, to stay away before the flame remembered who I was trying to become.
But instead, I stood still.
My body shaking.
My heart… breaking.
“Nathaniel,” I whispered, unsure if he could even hear me over the rush of fire still dancing around the edges of the gate.
He took a step forward, cautious now, like he was approaching a wounded animal. Or a dream.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“You don’t know what this is,” I replied, voice hoarse.
His eyes met mine. “Then tell me.”
I turned slowly, facing the gate again. “It remembers me. The fire. The gate. All of it. And for once… I’m not afraid of what I might become.”
“And what is that?” he asked gently.
“A vessel. A weapon. A goddess. I don’t know.” My hands trembled at my sides. “But it’s the first thing that doesn’t want to use me. It just… calls to me. And I’m so tired of running.”
He came closer.
Just a few more feet between us now.
“You’re not a weapon,” he said. “You’re not a prophecy. You’re not a title or a flame.”
“You don’t know that anymore.”
“I know you.”
My voice cracked. “Then why didn’t you save me?”
“I tried.” His words hit like stone. “Every second since you vanished. But you didn’t need a savior.”
He took one more step. Close enough that I could feel his presence pushing against the heat, the bond–or what was left of it–pulling like a thread caught on a nail.
“You needed someone to see you,” he said.
“I’m not the girl you loved,” I breathed.
“I know.”
Silence.
A thousand heartbeats packed into one.
“And you came anyway?”
“I didn’t come for her.” His voice dropped, steady and sure. “I came for you. Whoever you are now. Whoever you choose to be. I just need to know…”
He stopped.
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Chapter 113
The question hung between us.
And I asked it for him.
“Do you still believe in me?”
His breath shuddered.
“I never stopped.”
Behind me, the gate pulsed again.
But for the first time… I hesitated.
The gate throbbed behind me, heat coiling up my spine like a second heartbeat. It didn’t demand. It didn’t plead. It simply waited, open and patient, like it already knew the answer I hadn’t spoken yet.
But his voice had pierced something deeper than flame.
Nathaniel had looked at me–not as a goddess, not as a threat–but as a choice. As someone who still had one.
My foot hovered above the threshold, shaking.
Could I really turn away now? After all this? After everything I had lost, burned, survived?
My throat tightened.
“Nathaniel…” I said again, almost a prayer.
“Tell me what you see when you look at me now,” I whispered.
His answer was quiet. Raw.
“I see the girl who never needed saving–only remembering.”
And I stood between fire and faith, broken and burning, still not sure which one I would choose. But for the first time in weeks, I wanted to try.
Not for the world.
Not for Kael.
Not even for him.
But for me.
