Chapter 83
*Jiselle*
“Max?”
The name barely left my mouth before everything tilted sideways.
He stood in the corridor’s half–light, shadow bleeding from his skin like a living second layer. His hair was wild, damp with sweat, his body tense–ready. But it was his face that undid me. The raw emotion there. Regret Pain. Hope
Carrow cursed under her breath and lunged again.
But Max was faster.
Faster than anything I had ever seen.
He blurred into the darkness, reappearing behind her like a nightmare. His arm shot out, striking the pressure point at the base of her neck with brutal precision. Carrow crumpled instantly, dropping the rune-carved dagger with a hollow clatter
I stumbled back, heart hammering.
Max stepped in front of me, shielding me with his body as he watched Carrow collapse against the stone. He didn’t move for a long moment, chest heaving, golden eyes still flashing with leftover rage.
“Is she-” I started, but my throat tightened.
“No,” Max said flatly. “She’s not dead. Just unconscious. She’ll wake up knowing better than to try and hurt you again, even if she thinks it’s for your own good.”
I swallowed hard, my hands trembling at my sides. The dagger lay just a few feet away, its runes still pulsing faintly with suppressed magic. A single cut would’ve been enough to wipe me out–to lock me in silence and weakness.
I turned away from Carrow’s crumpled form and fixed my gaze on Max. “Isn’t that what you did?” I asked quietly. “When you tried to mark me? Wasn’t that your version of protecting me too?”
He flinched.
Actually flinched.
His eyes dropped to the ground. His shoulders sagged under the invisible weight of my words.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I know I can’t undo it. I know I broke what we had. I just… I wanted to keep you safe.”
His gaze flickered to my neck then–to the mark Nate had placed there.
A true mark.
A claiming born of choice, not force.
“It looks like Morningstar fixed that issue, though,” he said softly.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t owe him that. I didn’t owe him anything anymore.
When I didn’t speak, he sighed again, frustration bleeding into the air between us.
“Look, Jiselle,” he said, stepping closer. “We need to go. Now. The ceremony only gets worse from here. If they realize what you really are, they’ll kill you. They’ll carve you open and cage your soul. Please. Come with me. I can get you out of here.” For a split second–one terrible heartbeat–I almost wavered.
But then Nate’s voice slammed into my mind.
‘What’s wrong? I’m almost there–almost at the chamber where they were taking you. Just hold on!”
I closed my eyes.
‘You don’t need to anymore,‘ I sent back, the words thick with exhaustion.
There was a beat of stunned silence.
Then, ‘What? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Jiselle-‘
‘Max is here, I interrupted, forcing the words through our bond.
A roar, not of sound but of pure rage, rippled through me over the connection. Nate’s anger was a living thing, clawing at my skin. ‘WHAT?!‘
But before he could spiral, I shut the bond dow Successfully unlocked! out muted. Enough to tell him: Focus on the plan. I’ll handle this.
confused
“And they’ll kill you,” he snapped back. “For being who you are. For being better than them.”
I froze.
His voice cracked, and for the first time, I heard the truth under his anger. The fear. The desperation. The guilt.
“All of this-” he said, waving at the corridor, the academy, the mountain above us. “Everything I’ve done, everything Carrow
s done, it’s because we knew what was coming. We knew they’d turn on you the second you manifested. I didn’t want you to die here. I didn’t want you to be another casualty they wrote off and buried under the mountain.”
I stared at him, my heart twisting painfully.
He meant it.
In his own broken, toxic way–he meant it.
But it didn’t make it right.
“I have a plan,” I said, my voice hardening. “We have a plan. Nate, Eva, Ethan, and me. We’re going to stop the Blood Oath. Stop the Council’s purge.”
Shock flickered across Max’s face.
“You’re fighting back?” he breathed.
I nodded once. “Eva manifested. She’s Sentinel.”
Something like pride–genuine, unguarded–lit his expression. “I knew it. I always knew she had it in her.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
But there wasn’t time for that now.
“You can either fight with us,” I said, “or you can get the hell out of my way.”
He hesitated.
Pain, guilt, and something achingly tender moved across his face.
Then he straightened, shoulders squaring.
“I’m with you,” he said simply. “To the end.”
I didn’t thank him.
I didn’t have time.
Because behind us, the horn sounded again–low and mournful, calling the first years to gather for the Blood Oath ceremony.
The plan was already unraveling. Eva had warned us. Too many threads. Too many variables.
I couldn’t afford any more betrayal.
Without another word, I turned and sprinted back toward the Trial Ring.
My boots slammed against the stone, every step vibrating through my bones. The corridors blurred around me–shadows and torches, blood and dust.
When I burst into the main arena, the Trials had stopped.
Every first–year was standing in a loose line now, flanked by instructors. A wide circle had been cleared at the center of the floor, runes carved deep into the stone, glowing faintly red.
Council members stood around the edge, robed in black and silver, chanting low in the old tongue.
Veran was already looking at me when I returned. So was instructor Hadelyn and they both had murderous looks in tehri
eyes, knowing I escaped.
The Blood Oath was beginning.
