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Beacon in the Dark

Auteur: Hallie Shoemaker
last update Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-07 14:13:51

Selene

The next strike came without warning.

One heartbeat I was steady in the nexus, hands linked with Ronan’s and Mirra’s, riding the echo of our small victory in the Veil. The next, that sickly-sweet note slid back into the air—too sweet, too thick, like fruit gone just past ripe. It clung at the back of my throat.

The serpent hadn’t given up. It had only gone quiet long enough to watch us regroup.

The pressure built behind my eyes. Not a headache—an intrusion. It pushed a picture at me, trying to settle over my own memories like a new skin: the Veil tearing again, our bond unraveling, Ronan stepping away from me with that same cold distance from before—only now it layered on details I’d never actually seen. The set of his shoulders as he turned his back. The exact sound of my own breath catching. It wanted the scene to feel familiar, inevitable.

For a moment, my chest tightened. That was all the opening it needed.

I felt the entity lean in.

See? it whispered, not in words but in t
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  • Fractured   The Severing Offer

    MirraMirra had always trusted silence more than speeches. Silence held the truth people couldn’t polish.But the silence in the nexus had changed. It wasn’t the calm quiet of a forest at rest. It felt held—contained—like something was pressing against the edges of their world, waiting for the smallest crack to slip through.Selene’s hand was still in hers. Ronan stood close enough that Mirra could feel the heat of him, not just on her skin but in the air. The triangle they’d formed wasn’t accidental. It was a decision, and Mirra could feel the feeder recoil every time they chose it.That didn’t mean it stopped trying.The whisper returned, patient as rot.You’re the stable one, it told her. You’re the only reason they’re not unraveling. They need you. That makes you responsible. That makes you in charge.It didn’t sound like a villain. It sounded like the voice that had sat in Mirra’s chest for years every time she’d watched the forest suffer and wondered if she’d done enough.For on

  • Fractured   Anchor and Blade

    SeleneThe visions didn’t vanish all at once. They cracked, like glass under pressure, and the pieces kept trying to cling.I could still taste them at the back of my throat—those sweet promises that sounded like relief. Just you. Just your power. No compromise. The serpent knew exactly how to dress temptation in something that looked like peace.My palms stayed pressed to the Worldroot. The bark was warm now, not like fire—like a living thing aware of my touch. The vibration in the ground hadn’t stopped. It was steady, measured, like the heartbeat of something that refused to be rushed.Behind my eyes, the voice returned. Softer. More careful.You’re tired, it murmured. You deserve your own mind again.I felt my jaw clench. My anger rose fast, sharp and clean, because that was the first honest thing it had said. I was tired. I wanted my mind to be mine.But the next part was the lie—the hook it always tried to bury under something true.You can’t have them and have yourself. Choose.

  • Fractured   The Weight of Want

    RonanThe forest narrowed around them the closer they got to the Worldroot’s surface anchor. The air felt thicker, not in a mystical way—more like the kind of pressure you feel before something breaks. Ronan hated how quiet it was. Even the birds seemed to know better than to make noise.He kept Selene’s hand in his. Not because she needed it to walk. Not because he needed it to stand. Because the moment he let go, he could feel the serpent’s attention slide in, looking for space.It wasn’t gone. It was just… patient now.A few minutes passed without the cloying sweetness returning, and Ronan almost believed Mirra had been right—that the Worldroot’s presence made it wary.Then the voice came back, not loud. Familiar.It didn’t sound like a stranger. It sounded like a part of him that had always been there, the part that woke up before dawn, counted threats, mapped exits, calculated how many people could die if he made the wrong call.Protection, it said. Responsibility. That’s what yo

  • Fractured   Crown and Cage

    SeleneThe voice didn’t push. It didn’t shout. It didn’t even sound cruel.It sounded reasonable.“Imagine it, Selene,” it murmured inside her mind, soft and steady, like it had always belonged there. “To wield the moon’s full fury, uncompromised. To command the tides of magic without a second thought, without the whisper of another’s will in yours.”Selene’s fingers curled against the strap of her travel pack until the leather creaked. They were already moving—leaving the nexus behind, following Mirra through the first line of trees toward the Old Forest. Dawn hadn’t fully arrived yet. The sky was still dim enough that the moon lingered, pale and stubborn, refusing to let go.The serpent used that.It showed her what she’d wanted to see for weeks.A version of herself that didn’t need to negotiate every spell.In the illusion, she stood on a ridge of ice-clear stone, the wind cold but clean, her hair loose and lifting like it was weightless. Above her, the night sky was wide and shar

  • Fractured   Temptations of the Self

    SeleneThe vision didn’t come like an attack this time.It came like a wish.One second I was standing in the nexus with Ronan, my fingers still warm from his grip, my power woven with his. The next, the world… widened.The ground dropped away.The sky opened.And I was alone.Not alone the way I used to be—wrapped in the quiet of my own thoughts, anchored by the steady pull of the moon. This was… more. Or less. I couldn’t decide.There was no Veil. No serpent. No Ronan. No Mirra.Just me and the night.The moon hung huge and luminous above, the way it sometimes had in my childhood dreams, so bright it turned the world silver. I felt it like a hand pressed to my sternum, warm and cool at once, a steady, perfect pressure.When I raised my hand, it followed.My magic surged, and there was no grit of earth in it, no deep undertone of water. Just pure, clean silver. It poured through me like light through glass, no resistance, no static. When I thought rise, the tides obeyed in perfect si

  • Fractured   Visions of Ruin

    SeleneThe world ended in a heartbeat.Not in fire or thunder, but in silence.The Veil in my vision tore like thin cloth, the tear starting as a hairline crack of darkness and then ripping wide, wider, until there was nothing but a gaping wound bleeding shadow into the sky. The light went out, not with a bang, but with a long, horrible dimming, as if someone had put their hand over the sun and slowly squeezed.I saw cities swallowed. Forests turned to ash. Oceans boiling black.And in the center of it all, Ronan stood alone—if you could still call that thing Ronan. His aura, once a tide I could recognize even in sleep, was hollowed out, drained. His eyes were dead. The power I had come to know as his, wild and stubborn and alive, hung around him like smoke after a fire, a remnant of something already gone.You did this, the vision-Ronan said, though his mouth didn’t move. His voice came from everywhere and nowhere. You forced a bond that should never have been forged. You weakened me

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