b14:16 /bbMon/bb, /bbSep /bb22 /b

*Jiselle*

“I think you already know the answer,”

b55 /b

55 vouchers

Nate’s voice wasn’t angry. It wasn’t sharp or loud or cruel. It was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet thates after a battle you didn’t want to fight but knew you couldn’t walk away from. He stood at the far end of the room, his arms folded, gaze fixed on the floor as if saying it aloud would make it real. Like maybe if he didn’t look at me, he wouldn’t have to see how much the words were going to hurt.

I tightened the swaddle around my daughter’s body and rocked her gently against my chest. She hadn’t cried since we’d returned from the clearing. She hadn’t made a sound at all. Just watched. Quiet and still. Eyes too wise for her size, too ancient for a newborn. It should have terrified me. But it didn’t.

What scared me more was the fact that Nate was right.

I did know the answer.

“No,” I said finally. “I’m not running.”

He lifted his head slowly. “Jiselle…”

“She’s not a mistake. She’s not an ident. And she’s not something to be hidden.” I stepped closer, careful to keep my voice even, though I could feel the heat rising in my chest again–the same soft glow that had started at my ribcage and spread like slow me across my body. “She was born in fire. In blood. In prophecy. You saw what she did.”

“That’s exactly why we need to leave,” he snapped, finally meeting my eyes. “You think they’re going to let her grow up in peace after that? You think the Hollow–born, the Triad, the factions still left out there–we don’t even know who survived thest attack.”

“We do,” came Ethan’s voice from the doorway.

He walked in without fanfare, his shoulders slumped but his steps steady. He looked older somehow. Not physically. But in that weary, worn–out way people get when they’ve carried too much weight for too long and are still trying not to let it show. The mark on his hand was faded now. Pale and cracked like old paint. But not

gone.

He looked at the child, then at me. “We don’t run. We protect her… by bing what she needs.”

Nate shook his head. “And what if she doesn’t need usb?/bb” /b

“Then we still stay,” Ethan said simply. “Because that’s what love is.”

The silence that followed was heavy, but not hostile. It was the kind that came with hard choices. I looked between them–my bonded. My brothers. My almost–lovers. My regrets. My hopes. The Triad was still there, fractured but holding. Barely.

“She knows us,” I said softly, brushing my hand over the baby’s cheek. “She’s always known usb./bb” /b

b14:16 /bbMon/bb, /bbSep /bb22 /b

Nate stepped closer, not quite ready to touch her, but close enough that I could feel his warmth. “She’s growing too fast.”

“She’s not just growing. She’s remembering.” Eva said from the corner, rising from where she’d been kneeling in quiet prayer. “And that’s what scares you.”

Nate didn’t deny it. And he didn’t have to.

I looked down at the child in my arms. “I don’t think we were ever meant to protect her from the world. 1 think we were meant to prepare it for heri./i”

Ethan leaned against the edge of the desk. “So what do we do? What’s next?”

I didn’t answer. Not with words. I stepped forward and held the baby out toward Ethan. She blinked up at him, calm as ever.

He hesitated–just a second–before lifting her into his arms. She fit against his chest like she’d been there before. Like she remembered him.

“Hi,” he whispered, smiling faintly. “You look less terrifying when you’re not setting forests on fire.”

She gurgled, and we all stilled.

It was the first sound she’d made since her birth.

Nateughed, breathless, like the sound had punched the air out of his lungs. “Sheughed.”

“She’s learning,” I said, my voice cracking. “She’s listening.”

Ethan looked down at his hand–the one still marked by that old burn, the fading sigil that had haunted him since the teacher’s interference. The one that bound him, and maybe even tried to twist him.

Then she reached out.

Tiny fingers. Warm skin. A single touch against the center of his palm.

The mark shimmered. Then glowed. Then-

Faded.

Completely.

No scar. No wound.

Only clean, unbroken skin.

Ethan froze. “Did she-”

“She healed you,” Eva breathed..

I reached out, touching her tiny back. “Not just physically.”

b14:16 /bbMon/bb, /bbSep /bb22 /b

2

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Nate stepped forward now, his hesitation melting as he watched Ethan’s hand. “That’s not possible.”

“She’s not bound by what’s possible,” I said. “She’s rewriting the rules.”

A soft pulse beat through the room. The floor warmed. The air thickened–not with fear, but with something… sacred.

“She’s still choosing,” Ethan murmured, rocking her gently. “But I think she’s starting to choose usb./bb” /b

“No,” I said. “She’s starting to believe in us.”

We stood there, the four of us, bound by me and prophecy and mistakes. A strange family. A broken one. But somehow… whole.

The baby yawned, blinking once, then falling asleep against Ethan’s chest.

“She trusts you,” Nate said quietly.

“She trusts all of us,” I corrected. “Even when we don’t trust ourselves.”

No one spoke for a long while after that.

Until Eva moved to the window. She parted the curtain just slightly, peering out toward the treeline.

“It’s too quiet.”

I nodded. “For now.”

But in my heart, I knew peace wasn’t ours to keep.

It was something we’d have to fight for.

Maybe die for.

Because this child wasn’t just ours anymore.

She was the Gate’s heir. The Sovereign’s echo.

And the me had only just begun to breathe.

The baby shifted in Ethan’s arms.

A small sound escaped her lips–not a cry, but something closer to a sigh.

And as it left her, the mark on the wall–one we hadn’t noticed before–began to glow faintly.

I stepped toward it, heart suddenly thudding faster.

It pulsed once. Then again.

And then the words appeared.

b14:16 /bMon, Sep 22

Carved into the stone in faint, curling runes.

“She has chosen. Now you must.”

I looked at Nate. Then at Ethan.

And I realized-

The Sovereign’s choice wasn’t just hers.

It was ours.

And the time to make it wasing far sooner than any of us had hoped.

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