Chapter 90
*Jiselle*
The morning–or what passed for it in this place–crept in without fanfare. There were no windows to mark the sun’s arrival, only a soft change in the torchlight that filtered through the cracks above, casting fractured gold over the cold stone floor. I hadn’t slept, not really. Between the biting pressure of the chains and the hollow ache left in the wake of my severed magic, my body had shut down but my mind hadn’t followed.
I sat up slowly, arms sore and trembling as the memory of Kael’s visit lingered like smoke in my lungs. His words wouldn’t leave me.
I didn’t want obedience. I wanted your truth.
Truth. A pretty word for a man with so many secrets. Yet something in his voice–quiet, unshakable–felt more real than anything I’d heard in weeks. More honest than the lies I’d lived beneath at the Academy. More dangerous, too.
I was still caught in that thought when the door creaked open and two wolves entered–not in fur, but in human form. Both were young, maybe near my age, though the girl held herself with sharp–edged wariness and the boy with that taut grace you only got from years of survival.
“He wants you up,” the girl said. She didn’t offer her name. Her voice held no warmth, but no cruelty either.
They unlocked the chains, though the silver still clung to my skin in the form of bracelets etched with smaller, pulsing runes. A compromise. I was free enough to walk. Not enough to run.
I followed them through a narrow passage lit by flickering torches, the walls damp and dark with age. We moved in silence. The longer I walked, the more I noticed–scents not just of rogues, but of nature. Fresh moss. Riverwater. Smoke from cooked meat. I’d expected a dungeon. This place was something else entirely.
The tunnel opened onto a wide cavern. Sunlight poured in from a hole above, lighting the space like a spotlight. Around the edges, I saw wolves training–sparring with weapons and claws alike. Some practiced rune work on thick stones, others meditated near softly humming crystals. It wasn’t a prison.
It was a sanctuary.
Kael waited near the center. He wasn’t alone. Four wolves stood behind him in a loose arc–older than me, different in build and expression, but every one of them held power like a second skin. Gifted. I could feel it in the air, the low thrum of magic that hadn’t been filtered or suppressed. It was raw and wild and real.
He turned as I approached, and though he said nothing at first, the others parted for me like a wave breaking.
“I wanted you to see it,” he said finally. “The others. The ones like you.”
I eyed them. “You mean wolves the Council didn’t break?”
“Or kill,” the tall woman to his left added coolly.
Her eyes glinted gold, like molten metal. Something flickered behind them–recognition or curiosity–I couldn’t tell. Kael stepped closer, but not enough to crowd me. “You’re not a prisoner here, Jiselle. Not anymore. The cuffs stay, for now, but that’s all. Today, I offer you a choice.”
My eyes narrowed. “Another speech?”
He didn’t smile. “A challenge.”
Kael raised his hand and the others stepped back.
“I want you to try something,” he said. “Forget what the Council taught you. The controlled channels. The meditation rituals. The breath–work and obedience. I want you to find what’s left of your gift–and pull.”
I stared at him, unsure if he was serious.
“You suppressed it with that rune disc.”
He nodded. “And yet, you’re still alive. Still breathing. Still dangerous.”
My jaw clenched. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes,” he said simply, “I do.”
Kael motioned to a stone basin near the center of the room. It was filled with water, though the surface shimmered oddly- as though touched by power.
“Step in,” he said.
I hesitated, then moved. Every eye in the chamber followed me. The water was warm, surprisingly, and as my bare feet touched it, something deep within me stirred. A flicker of recognition.
“Now,” he said. “Close your eyes. Reach.”
1/2
Chapter 90
I wanted to laugh, to scoff, to call it nonsense. But I didn’t. I closed my eyes. The silence of the chamber settled over me like a second skin, cool and weightless.
And I reached.
Not with the precision the Academy had demanded, not with the fear of being punished for stepping too far. I reached with instinct, with memory, with fury.
The world didn’t explode. There was no brilliant blast of power.
Just… a spark.
It flared to life inside me like a match catching wind. Tiny. Fragile. But unmistakably mine.
I gasped.
Light shimmered beneath the water, curling around my ankles like silver mist. Not fire. Not lightning. Something else–fluid and pulsing.
I opened my eyes and met Kael’s.
“Told you,” he murmured.
The others exchanged glances–some surprised, some… afraid.
The woman with gold eyes stepped forward. “She’s not supposed to recover that fast. Not after a full suppression rune.” “Unless she’s more than they thought,” said the man beside her–tall, scarred, wary.
Kael nodded. “She is.”
I stepped out of the basin, breath shallow, the energy still flickering beneath my skin like candlelight. It was small, but it was real. Mine.
He offered me a cloth to dry my feet. I didn’t take it. I wasn’t ready to be grateful.
“What is this place?” I asked instead.
“Some call it the Hollow,” he said. “Some call it a lie. I call it the beginning.”
“The beginning of what?”
“Freedom.”
He looked around the chamber. “Every wolf here is gifted. Every wolf here was hunted. The Council used fear to control us. You were just the first to push back in public.”
A girl stepped forward then. Younger than me, freckles dusting her cheeks, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
“I thought you’d be taller,” she said, blunt and unblinking.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’re the one who fought the binding circle at the Academy, right?”
I nodded slowly.
“Badass,” she said, then turned and walked away.
A few chuckles followed, but the tension remained. Not everyone was amused.
“She’s dangerous,” one muttered.
“She’s what we’ve been waiting for,” another countered.
Kael raised a hand and the murmurs died.
“She’s one of us now. Train with her. Watch her. Learn.”
He turned to me again. “And you–learn who you are without them.”
I wanted to argue, to push back, but the warmth still curling through my veins held me in place.
I didn’t know who I was anymore.
But I intended to find out.
And I would start here.
Even if it meant playing the rogue’s game.
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