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Strength to Choose
Last Updated:
2025-06-09 22:12:45
Latest chapter
The One The Original Queen
*Seraphira*The battlefield trembles beneath my feet, each pulse of the earth echoing like a heartbeat I can no longer ignore. Smoke coils in the air, thick with ash and blood and the remnants of what we’ve already lost. The cries of my people fade into the background as I stand at the center of it all, where past, present, and future converge.This is the war I was born into, but it will not be the war I die in.I close my eyes. Let the wind wrap around me, cool against the heat of my skin, let the magic beneath the surface of the land hum in my bones, let the voices of the fallen guide me.My Four stand around me. They are my soul, my heart, and my strength.Valen, with fire always burning behind his dark eyes, his passion wild and consuming, gives me courage like I’ve never known. Orienne, fierce and agile, the wind at his back, his breath tethered to every current that shifts the tides of battle, instills in me a sense of power. Thalos, unmoving as stone, his connection to the ear
The One Bound
*Maerilee*There’s no time to think, no time to question or wonder if this is right or fair. No matter what happens after, we have to act now. We rush through the halls with Mother at the front guiding us, our footsteps echoing against the stone as if the castle itself is awake and holding its breath.I can feel my Four are at my side.River is like a storm held tight in a bottle, broody and dangerous. Brook’s quiet strength pulses at my back, steady and sure. Permiton moves with the purpose of an ancient wisdom. Akin is unbelievably alive again, raw and radiant.I think of Seraphira’s Four again. The vision of them I saw what feels like just moments ago. They became a singularity, a functioning group rather than five individuals. If we have any hope of re-erecting the barrier, that is what we must become. And this binding ceremony will be the final piece to make that happen.We burst into the throne room, where everything is still, despite the war waging outside. We have a little tim
The One Hope Returned
*River*The gates to the castle burst open for the four of us. I push through first, my sword still drawn, the metallic echo of steel on stone ringing through the courtyard like thunder. The guards barely have time to part before I’m through, their startled shouts falling behind me as I stride across the threshold, boots pounding against the cold, polished floor.Brook and Permiton are right behind me, one arm slung over each of their shoulders, with Akin between them, barely standing, swaying with every step, but alive. He’s more than a little beaten up, his strength completely zapped. But that’s why we’re here.We don’t know how, but he’s here. One moment, we were standing in an apparently empty ruin, feeling like all hope was gone. The next, Akin appeared before us, like magic. In fact, probably because of magic. But Permiton kept muttering that it wasn’t possible, that no ordinary fae could have broken through shadow magic like that.I’ve known for quite a while that Akin was no o
The One Strength to Choose
*Maerilee*I’m standing back on the battlefield, smoke coiling in the air. Ash clings to my skin. The scent of blood and fire invades my lungs. My boots are caked in soot. The wind carries the soft moan of a world unraveling.Strange. I was sure I was in my rom. I must be asleep again. Sure enough, when I look across the battlefield, Seraphira is there waiting for me. She stands in the same place as before, the hem of her pale gown untouched by the carnage, her long silver braid trailing over her shoulder like a banner. Her silver eyes are piercing, unreadable, as they settle on me.“You’re back,” she says, her tone making it clear that she’s been expecting me.I swallow hard. “Lately, I wish I never had to leave,” I admit, knowing she’ll keep my secrets. “Things out there are so awful. Every moment feels like it could be the last. The barrier is failing, and I don’t know what to do about it.”She tilts her head, watching me curiously.“Why are you so afraid, Maerilee?”“I’m not,” I a
The One When the Darkness Comes
*Akin*There is no time here. Not really. It stretches and twists and folds in on itself like smoke curling in the wind, and I’ve long stopped trying to measure it. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, only that my muscles have forgotten movement and my mind has frayed at the edges more times than I can count.Sometimes I hear my own heartbeat. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I remember the feeling of a sword in my hand, the warmth of Maerilee’s breath against my neck, the solid weight of River’s shoulder brushing mine in battle. Sometimes I think they are figments of my imagination, people who never truly lived.Here in this place, the in-between where shadow bleeds into shadow and the air pulses with silent, screaming magic, I barely exist. The darkness doesn’t just cover me. It holds me. It lives in me. It wraps around my limbs like cold iron, slipping between my ribs, threading through the places I thought were mine and making them something else. My thoughts no longer come in order
The One In the Ruins
*Permiton*Our plan is terrible. It’s risky and rushed, based more on instinct than certainty. Still, it’s the only one we have. I stare down at the ancient text splayed across the marble table, the brittle parchment threatening to crumble beneath my fingers. The ink has faded in places, the script so old it bleeds together like veins across stone, but I’ve read it four times through, and I keep coming back to the same haunting phrase.“Shadow that clings can be burned by light unclaimed.”Light unclaimed. Not wielded. Not conjured. Unclaimed.It’s maddening and vague. One of those half-riddles the old scholars always loved to leave behind as though ambiguity made them brilliant instead of insufferable. Without my Sight, I have no way of knowing what it really means.I stand in the ruins of what used to be a steady gift. Where once I could see clear branches of possibility, now all I get are flickers, blurred images that are dreams I forget the second I wake. I thought it was grief, a
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