Lahat ng Kabanata ng Mate Rebound : Kabanata 171 - Kabanata 180

Jasmine's POV~I barely had time to react before the thing attacked. But it did not strike me cold, like a blow. It struck me like memory — full-bodied, mind-shattering, blood-deep. My gasp was ripped from my throat when the force of my stumble sent me back, slamming into Damien’s chest. He caught me, steadying me, but I didn’t register his touch. I wasn’t even paying attention to my own body. Since the creature hadn’t attacked me. It had entered me.“No — no, no, please no,” I panted, holding my head. It was tearing me apart, in my mind. Not pain. Something worse. Recognition. All the pieces of myself that I’d broken off and buried. Every doubt. Every selfish thought. Everything I had ever doubted and pretended was my strength rose to the surface.”“I did not ask for this,” I murmured.“But the decision was yours,” the voice resounded inside. “You left me there. In the glass. In the stillness. I now put on what you threw away.” I dropped to my knees. Damien was screaming for me, but

Damien's POV~Jasmine’s name remained carved in stone.I froze in place as the entire Academy went silent behind me. The wind had whisked away the remaining smoke. The earth beneath my boots was still hot from what had just been — like the world hadn’t yet soaked itself in her absence.I couldn’t walk away.The grave wasn’t deep. She would have hated some grand tomb. She railed against being made famous only after she was dead. But it had to be here, Elara had said—at the very spot where the old altar had been. Jasmine had broken it with her body and sealed it with her soul. This land owed her that.So did I.I kneeled, fingers grazing the line of fresh soil. No flowers. Not yet. Ilsa had said until the gate locked that nothing would grow here in the soil. I had no idea how long that would take. Maybe never.I sucked in a sharp breath through my lungs.I didn’t cry at the burial. Not until Elara read the last words of Jasmine, in the note she had left with the Uncut. Certainly not the

Elara’s POV~I did not say anything when I saw him. I couldn’t. Caspian was standing in the doorway like a ghost unwilling to be quiet. Shirt ripped, face smudged with dirt, eyes hollow from fatigue. But still him. Still real. He gazed directly at the baby in my lap. “She’s not the only one,” he repeated.Damien was the first to burst forward, somehow positioning himself between us on reflex, protective as always. But I was on my feet and rearing to take a step closer, clutching the baby tightly. “Where have you been?” I asked.Caspian exhaled, then staggered. Damien checked his fall by grasping his arm as he fell to the floor. “I need…A second,” Caspian mumbled. “There’s too much. I don’t know if I even made it back that far.”I led him to the cot next to the one the baby had been in. Sitting on him, the fingers of her little hands wandered fumblingly in the cloth of his shoulder. Caspian’s voice cracked. “I didn’t die. I don’t think. But I wasn’t anywhere. I was… between.”“Between

Elara's POV~He says my name as if he had never stopped saying it, even in his sleep. I inhaled so hard I choked on my breath..The man in the crystal chamber blinked lazily, his eyes an unnatural mix of violet and gold. Jasmine’s colors. Her brand shimmered and pulsed weakly on his chest in time to the heartbeat I could feel in the floor through my boots. I couldn’t move at first. Not because I was afraid. But not because a part of me changed. Something ancient..“Do you… Know me?” I whispered in reply.His lips were dry and chapped. “Elara Vale. Chosen of the Bound Flame. Keeper of the First Breath. Jasmine spoke of you… always.” I stepped closer. Damien met me at my ankle but did not try to stop me.“What is this place?” I asked. He peered beyond me to the child in my arms. And for a brief instant, something in him softened. “She’s here,” he whispered.“You know who she is?” Damien asked sharply. The man’s eyes darted toward him. “I know what she carries.”I wrapped the swaddle aroun

Elara's POV~I didn’t take another breath for three full seconds. The cry was unmistakable. It wasn't an echo..Not a hallucination. It was a real cry. A cry of yet another child. I squeezed Nyra even harder, but did not feel her shake in fear. Her head tilted a little, her silvered eyes focused on the moving wall as if she had been expecting it. As if she knew next.Damien led the way, sword unsheathed, body tensed but silent. And the stone corridor that stretched before us didn’t exist a moment ago. It was a tight, sloping passage, its walls throbbing softly with anciently familiar magic. Jasmine’s magic. Maeryn put a hand on my shoulder. “Stay close to her.”“I am,” I said, already on my way. The shard-walkers remained behind. Still kneeling. Still watching. But when we stepped into the passage, they dropped their heads again. As if they didn’t belong in this part. As if we were heading off into a place even they did not dare to enter.The thicker the air got, the deeper into it we