LOGINSelina~We left the quarters again. The corridors were a hive of activity. Guardians were erecting makeshift barriers. Students carried weapons they had never wielded before. The air crackled with unstable magic; the ley lines beneath us twitched like wounded animals.Liora stood at the East Gate. Alone. Or so it seemed. Her dress was torn. Blood trickled from a wound at her temple. Yet her eyes were clear, cool, and calculating. When she saw me, she tilted her head.You survived. Impressive. Most marked souls shatter upon first contact with what waits beyond the mountain. Raymond stepped in front of me. The wolf within him refused to keep its distance.Speak. Or leave.Liora offered a thin smile.The Hungry Moon is just the beginning. What arrives in three nights is a herald. The true Master of the Lines waits even deeper down. He has gathered Iris, the scarred woman, and every failed pact of the last few centuries. He is using them as an army. And he needs the rift inside you to bre
Selina~The courtyard lay in a silence that weighed heavier than any scream. The rift was closed. Iris had vanished. The great hand and the single finger were gone. Yet the voice from the fissure in my soul still echoed. Three nights. The Hungry Moon. The marked soul. The waking wolf. Everything bound to us.Raymond was still holding me tight. His arms no longer trembled from weakness; they trembled from the tension of the wolf—now fully awake and with no intention of sleeping again. His eyes glowed ice-blue in the light of the shattered lamps. The thread between us pulsed black and white. A color that no longer belonged solely to us. A color that carried the stolen third key.Rowan was the first to move. He wiped blood from his face and studied the ground where the rift had been. The scales on his neck receded only slowly."The outer shields are dead. I can feel it. Whatever that was, it ate through them from the inside out. The Academy lies exposed."Alfred supported Geraldine, who
Selina~Iris screamed in rage. She hurled the piece of the staff straight at him. Red runes exploded. Raymond was thrown backward. The drop in his hand glowed. The shadowy hand seized the moment and reached for me again. This time, it targeted the spot where the gap was just closing. Fingers dug in. Pain exploded—white, searing, and absolute.I screamed. The thread between us nearly snapped, even though it was sealed. Raymond scrambled back to his feet. The drop in his hand burned deeper into his skin. His eyes were pure ice-blue. The wolf spoke through him.You will not touch her.He didn't throw the burning drop away. He pressed it against his own chest. Against the spot where the thread was anchored. The drop hissed. Smoke rose. The thread flared with a color I had never seen before—black and white at the same time. The sealed bond accepted the third key in a way Iris hadn't planned. The circle closed. But not for her. For us.Iris staggered back. For the first time, her face betra
Selina~Raymond pulled me further back. The shadowy hand followed. The bond between us burned so hot that I could smell burning flesh. My own skin. His. The mountain beneath us reacted. The sealed bond sent out pulses that made the courtyard tremble. Blue and gold cracks formed in the ground and crept toward the shadowy hand. The mountain was trying to help. Or to take. I no longer knew which.Iris raised the vial higher.One more drop and the circle closes. Then her soul will no longer belong to her. Then it will belong to the thing the first hybrid feared. To the thing the dark Fae summoned when they killed Carolina. To the thing Father has been feeding with lies and blood all this time.Raymond’s voice was barely recognizable. Too deep. Too raw.Touch her again and I’ll rip your heart out and eat it right in front of your father.Iris laughed again. The laugh of my childhood. The laugh of the friend who had abandoned me. The laugh of the sister who had never wanted me.Give it a tr
Chapter 23Selina~The hand grabbed hold. Not human. Not stone. Something in between, yet older than both. Long fingers made of shimmering shadow and refracted light closed around my ankle. Cold shot through my body, seeking out the very gap in my soul. The tether between Raymond and me flared up as if about to snap, even though it had been sealed. Raymond pulled me back with all his might. His arms became a suit of armor around my torso. The silent wolf within him stirred more powerfully; a deep growl vibrated in his chest—a sound I had never heard before.Iris laughed. The laugh was bright, sharp, and full of triumph."Too late. The door is open. The mountain has taken what it wanted, exposing the very spot we need. Your pure soul is no longer pure, Selina. It is marked. And marked souls belong to whatever waits beyond the ley lines."The hand pulled. My body slid across the broken flagstones of the courtyard. Raymond braced his feet against a crack in the stone and held firm. Blood
Selina~The woman straightened up again. The remnants of the old bonds tugged at her, but she fought on. The staff in her hand pulsed. She aimed once more.Raymond pulled me close. His voice was barely a whisper.If one of us has to stay, it’s me. The wolf is silent. The curse is gone. I can hold the anchor. You go back. You live. You make the Academy safe. You find out what your father was really planning.No. The word burst from me like a command. I cupped his face in both hands. The thread between us flared—green, gold, blue, and now a new white born of my soul.Not one. Both. Or neither. You said *together*. That applies here, too.The mountain reacted. Space contracted until the light became almost unbearably bright. The woman screamed and thrust the staff forward one last time. The black beam struck the thread at the exact moment the mountain made its final demand.Something inside me snapped.Not the thread. Something deeper. The pure soul everyone coveted. It opened wide. Agai







