I didn’t remember falling asleep.
One moment I was curled against Nate’s chest, breathing in his warmth like it was the only thing tethering me to this world. The next, the air changed. Thickened. Bent around me like a slow exhale. I wasn’t in bed anymore. I wasn’t even sure I was
- me.
The ground beneath me crackled with fire.
Trees burned around me in towering walls of red and gold, their trunks screaming as bark split and collapsed into ash. Smoke curled through the air in long, writhing arms, choking out the stars. The sky above wasn’t black–it was blood. A bleeding red canvas streaked with light that pulsed in sync with my heartbeat.
And at the center of it all stood a wolf.
White.
Brilliant.
Untouched.
She was enormous–larger than any wolf I’d ever seen. Even Nate’s form paled in comparison. Her fur shimmered with silver threading through white, glowing with an inner light that made the fire hesitate around her. Like the flames knew better than to touch her. She was regal. Terrible. Beautiful.
And she was staring at me.
I couldn’t breathe.
She took a step forward, paws silent on scorched earth. The fire parted for her. Bowed, even. “Who… who are you?” I whispered.
Her head tilted slightly. She blinked once. And then, to my horror, she began to change.
Fur retracted. Bones shifted. Skin stretched.
She rose up on two legs until she wasn’t a wolf anymore.
She was me.
Naked, unblemished, her hair a glowing halo behind her shoulders, her body glowing like moonlight in a storm. But her eyes… they weren’t mine. They were white. Fully white. No iris. No pupil. Just light. Ancient. All–seeing. “No,” I gasped, stumbling back.
She smiled–not cruelly, but not kindly either. Like she’d seen the end of the world and found it inevitable. “You carry what I couldn’t,” she said. Her voice echoed–not in the air, but in my bones.
“Who are you?” I asked again, but it came out cracked. Fragile.
“You already know.”
She took another step. The fire moved with her.
“The stars chose once before,” she continued. “And they chose wrong. But the moon has not forgotten.”
“I’m not ready for this,” I choked out.
“No one ever is.”
My knees gave out. I collapsed to the earth, smoke filling my lungs, tears stinging my cheeks. “I’m not her. I’m not you. I don’t even know what I am.”
“You’re what happens when the veil tears.”
She crouched beside me. Touched my chest–right over my heart–and light exploded from her fingers. Not pain. Not heat. Just… power. It rushed into me like breath after drowning, like lightning and calm and terror all at once.
“You don’t have to survive,” she whispered, “but if you do… change everything.”
And then she turned.
The fire surged again, curling around her body Successfully unlocked! ehind her. The trees groaned.
She didn’t look back.
She walked into the heart of the blaze and vanished.
And I woke up screaming.
1/3
Chapter 69
My breath tore from my lungs like I’d been submerged in cold water. My body bolted upright, drenched in sweat, shaking so violently the sheets tangled around my waist like shackles. My throat Burned from the force of the scream I couldn’t finish. The room was dark–moonlight streaming through Nate’s open window, soft shadows dancing across the walls.
The fire was gone.
But the heat… it lingered in my chest.
I looked down.
And that’s when I saw it.
Not the mark from the ceremony.
This one was new.
Etched directly over my heart, its edges glowing faintly in silver. A swirling design of three crescent moons interlocked in
an endless loop, framed by a ring of tiny stars. It wasn’t made of ink. It wasn’t burned or branded.
It was part of me.
It pulsed once.
Then stilled.
“Jiselle?”
Nate’s voice was thick with sleep, but the moment he sat up and saw me, he was alert.
I scrambled to cover the mark with my palm. “I’m okay,” I lied, my voice hoarse. “Just… needed air.”
He looked at me for a long moment. Eyes sharp. Knowing. But he nodded. Laid back down. “Come here.”
I didn’t move.
Couldn’t.
He drifted off again, his breathing even.
But my heart… it hadn’t slowed.
I climbed out of bed on silent feet, tiptoeing toward the small cabinet where I’d hidden the journal. The one Bastain gave me. The one no one else knew I had.
Serina’s.
I pulled it free from beneath the floorboard where I’d stuffed it days ago, fingers trembling as I brushed the dust from its cover. The leather was cracked, the edges worn. It felt heavier now. More alive.
I sat on the floor in front of Nate’s window, letting the moonlight fall over me. I opened the first page.
Blank.
I flipped to the next.
Also blank.
The third… same thing.
I nearly tossed it in frustration.
But then, I stopped.
I closed my eyes, took a slow breath, and whispered, “Show me.”
The page beneath my fingertips shivered.
Lines appeared–first faint, then darker. Ink rose like smoke. Words I couldn’t understand began to fill the page in swirling script. Symbols I didn’t know but somehow recognized started sketching themselves into the margins.
The cipher.
It wasn’t written for eyes.
It was written for minds.
For mine.
I flipped through as more pages began to fill–each one crawling with thoughts, images, fragments of a life that wasn’t mine but felt too much like it was. There were drawings of celestial bodies, diagrams of shifting patterns that made my temples throb.
And then the words came clearly, as if they’d been waiting for me:
“She who carries the moons shall not burn, but they will try to set her aflame.”
“Her howl will shatter the balance. Her gift will bend the laws And th
333
Chapter 69
“There were five. There must always be five. But only one who sees the veil.”
I swallowed thickly.
At the bottom of the page, a single line was scrawled in bold ink, as though added after the rest had aged:
“They killed me before I became her.”
I slammed the book shut.
My breath came fast and wild.
That was her. Serina. Speaking through time.
And her warning was clear.
I wasn’t just the next Ethereal.
I was the first to survive.
