*Jiselle*

“Do you ever stop ying god, Bastain?”

Nate’s voice cut across the stronghold’s war room like a de, sharp enough to silence even the whispering mes. The map of fractured leylines between us curled at the edges from the heat still radiating off my skin, and I could feel the pressure building behind my eyes. Again.

Bastain didn’t flinch. He simply turned his head, fingers still sped behind his back. “Do you ever stop letting emotionpromise judgment?”

The tension cracked.

I stepped between them, my chest already tight from the child rolling beneath my ribs. “Enough.”

But neither of them looked at me. Not really.

Nate took another step forward, fire in every line of his body. “You’re nning to use him.”

“I’m nning to protect her,” Bastain replied, voice still cold, still too calm. “And if you can’t see that-”

“He’s my brother.”

“And he’s not entirely himself, is he?” Bastain’s eyes finallynded on me. “She knows it. Don’t you?”

My hands curled into fists.

The me inside me flickered at the edges of my spine–ready tosh. It wasn’t just from the arguing. It was the child. She was reacting again. Every pulse of their anger churned her power closer to the surface.

I drew a slow breath. “Bastain, Nate… please. If we fight amongst ourselves, we lose before the Hollow–born even arrive.”

Bastain’s jaw ticked, but he turned back to the map. “One of the Triad has already beenpromised. You think Aedric doesn’t know what that means?”

“He hasn’t lost himself,” Nate snapped. “He’s not like them.”

“You’re not sure.” Bastain didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “And if you’re wrong–if Ethan bes the doorway–then everything we’ve built falls.”

b9:55 /bbWed/bb, /bbSep /bb17 /b

Nate’s nostrils red. His wolf shed behind his eyes, and for a terrifying second, I bthought /bhe’d shift. Not out of instinct, but rage.

I reached for his hand, the heat between our palms barely contained. “Stop. Please. She feels everything.”

That got through to him. Barely.

He looked down at me, throat bobbing. “Then you know why I can’t sit still and let him bmake /bthese decisions for us.”

I nodded, but I didn’t speak. My belly tightened again–low, deep, like something inside me was gripping the center of my body and twisting.

The contraction passed, but my breathing didn’t slow.

Bastain rolled up the map. “The child is already beginning to choose. Whether you like it or

not.”

I turned toward him sharply. “And what exactly is she choosing, Bastain?”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

Because in that moment, I felt her again. Not just stirring. Not just responding.

Listening.

***

That night, Ethan didn’t return.

Not for food.

Not for council.

Not even to see me.

It wasn’t like him–not since the bond had begun shifting. Not since he’d started hearing her

voice in me.

His room was dark when I opened the door, but I knew before I even stepped inside that he wasn’t there. The bed was still perfectly made, undisturbed, with the nket folded at the corner just as he’d left it the morning before. The scent of candlewax and burntvender lingered faintly in the air, but it couldn’t cover the absence. Not from me.

b9:55 /bbWed/bb, /bbSep /bb17 /b

I knelt beside the bed and brushed my fingers along the cold floorboards, my breath bcatching /bwhen I reached the center. The rune–etched deep beneath where his head would’ve rested- was back.

The one I had scrubbed away with tears in my eyes and blood in my palms.

Now, it pulsed again, deeper, darker, carved into the stone with something not entirely of bthis /bworld. I didn’t need to touch it to feel the hum. But I did anyway. My skin prickled the second I brushed the edge. Warm. Wet. Blood.

Fresh.

I left the room before my own fear could slow me down.

The halls were empty, the stronghold thick with quiet. Not peace. Not rest. Just the kind of quiet that came before the sky cracked open and something dark poured through..

wrapped myself in my cloak and passed the eastern gate just as the sun dipped below the ridge. The edge of it lit the trees in dying gold, and even that couldn’t shake the chill pressing down my spine. I walked without knowing exactly where I was going. But my steps were sure. Guided. Pulled.

The path bent sharply just past the outer wards. I followed it, heart tightening with every step. And when the leyline shimmered faintly through the trees ahead, I knew I was close.

That’s where I found it.

A scrap of fabric–caught on a bramble like it had been torn in a struggle.

Torn. Dark. Spattered in red.

I reached for it with trembling fingers and turned it over slowly in my palm.

Ethan’s shirt.

The one he wore under his tunic. The one I’d mended just a week ago, patching a frayed seam near the cor. My stitch was still there–though it was now soaked in blood.

My stomach turned. Not from fear alone, but from something deeper. Instinct.

Something ancient and guttural wed its way through my chest and into my throat.

I dropped to my knees and pressed my palm to the earth. The dirt was soft. Warm.

Still warm.

The blood hadn’t dried.

b9:55 /bbWed/bb, /bbSep /bb17 /b

“Ethan,” I whispered, though my voice barely carried beyond the trees. “Where are youb? /b

The only answer was the wind. It moved through the leaves above me like breath through clenched teeth. Slow. Tense.

The leyline beneath my knees flickered weakly. I could feel it, like a dying heartbeat bstuttering /bbetween pulses.

And then the child moved.

Not softly. Not gently.

She kicked hard–once, twice–her presence mming into me from the inside like a force too vast for one body to contain.

I cried out, the sound pulled from somewhere low in my spine as pain red through my ribs and down into my hips.

Another kick.

Another contraction.

They weren’t like the small flutters I’d felt before. These were full–bodied. Sharp. Real.

I clutched the nearest tree and pressed my forehead against the bark, trying to breathe through the tightening across my belly.

“Not now,” I whispered. “Please… not now. Not like this.”

But the pain didn’t care. It came in waves–rolling, deep, cutting straight through flesh and into bone.

The forest swam before my eyes as I stumbled upright, dragging myself back toward the stronghold, limbs heavy and legs numb. Every breath felt like I was inhaling smoke, and the wind around me blurred into a kind of pulsing rhythm I couldn’t drown out.

Somehow, I made it back to the warded walls before my legs gave out.

I copsed just outside the corridor that led to our quarters, my vision swimming in and out of focus.

That’s where Nate found me.

His footsteps hit the stone with a speed I hadn’t heard from him in days. Then he dropped to his knees beside me, one arm going around my shoulders as the other cupped the back of my head like I might break apart if he didn’t hold me together.

b9:56 /bbWed/bb, /bSep 17

“Jiselle?” His voice cracked, hoarse. “Hey–hey, look at me. What’s happening?”

I clutched his shirt. “I… I think it’s starting. It hurts–I thought-”

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He pulled me in tighter, rocking slightly, his breath ragged. “Breathe. You’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

I let him hold me. Let myself believe, for one heartbeat, that I was. That we both were.

But then the pain stopped.

Just like that.

My body went still.

The tightness across my stomach faded like a wave retreating back to sea, leaving behind silence and cold sweat.

“They stopped,” I whispered. “The contractions… they’re gone.”

His hands trembled where they held me, but he didn’t loosen his grip. “You’re sure?”

I nodded slowly, though my whole body felt like it had been dragged through fire.

“For now,” I whispered.

He pressed his forehead to mine and closed his eyes.

We sat there in the quiet, just breathing.

But the silence that settled around us wasn’tforting.

It was something else.

It was the kind of silence that held truth.

Heavy. Unspoken. Unavoidable.

I felt it in the way his hands stayed still. In the way his breath stuttered just before he pulled back.

I knew the words before he said them.

“You’re not just carrying a child anymore,” Nate said softly. “You’re carrying a decision.”

The words sat between us like stone.

9:56 Wed, Sep 17

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“What decision?” I asked, but my voice had no bite. No real curiosity. Because deep down, bI /balready knew.

He looked at me–not with anger, not with me–but with something far more dangerous.

Resignation.

“Between us.b” /b

I didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.

His hands didn’t move, but the bond between us shifted again, just slightly–like something old and fraying at the edge.

“I feel her choosing,” he said quietly. “And I don’t think it’s me.”

It wasn’t cruel.

It wasn’t bitter.

It was honest.

And that made it worse.

Because the silence between us after that wasn’t just still.

It was sharp.

It was a de.

And I didn’t know yet whether it was meant to cut us apart… or force us to bleed together.

AD