Lahat ng Kabanata ng Fractured: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

Selene“We can’t keep going like this,” I said.The words came out softer than they felt, but in the nexus even a whisper carried. It ran along the stone, through the silvered moss, into the roots below. No taking it back.Ronan stood near the outer ring of stones, half in shadow. The moonlight caught the edge of his jaw, but his eyes stayed darker than they should have. I used to read them easily. Now there was too much in there—my light, Mirra’s steadiness, his own doubt—layered together like storm clouds.“I know,” he answered. His voice had that rough edge it got when he’d been holding too much in for too long. “This… this doubt. It’s a poison.”The word fit, even if I hated it. A slow one, not the dramatic kind. Little things, day after day. A hesitation before touching the bond. A thought you cut off as soon as you realize someone else might hear. A look you pretend you didn’t see.Mirra stood a few steps away, palm resting on one of the standing stones. The stone glowed faintly

SELENERonan’s thumb brushed over my hand — tender, familiar — yet the touch felt like a crossroads.His warmth bled into me, and with it came the echo of waves, tides pulling toward a moonlit shore. My magic hummed in response without my consent. It welcomed him. It remembered him. And because it did — I wasn’t sure I remembered where I ended and we began.“I dream of the moon’s pure light,” I told him, the words shaky but true. “The silver I could command without question. Now it comes with roots… with soil. I don’t resent it.” I hesitated, tasting the sharp edge of honesty. “But it’s not mine anymore.”Admitting it aloud felt like peeling skin from bone.He didn’t look away. Didn’t deny it to soothe me. That, more than anything, made my chest tighten.Ronan had always been strength — steady, tidal. I leaned into that once. Now stepping toward him felt like stepping closer to my own unraveling.“I worry that in becoming more,” I whispered, “we’re losing ourselves.”The wind moved li

SeleneI’d expected his reassurance to feel like a bandage—something laid gently over the fear, softening it but not really changing what was underneath.It didn’t.It felt like someone had reached into the fear itself and turned it, showing me another angle I hadn’t allowed myself to see.“I don’t resent the tempering influence, Selene,” Ronan said, and this time there was none of that hesitant uncertainty in his voice. “I… struggle with it. Because it feels like a part of my power is no longer solely mine. But I don’t resent you.”He said it plainly. No apology. No softening on my behalf. Just the blunt truth of a man who’d stared down too many storms to see the point in lying now.“I’m not afraid you’re betraying anything,” he went on. “I’m afraid of what this means for us. For the very concept of ‘us’.”The word hung between us, heavier than any spell.“If we become so fused that our individual desires and fears are indistinguishable,” he continued, “then what’s left of our own ag

SeleneThe realization hit harder than any physical blow.For a heartbeat, I couldn’t tell if the chill running through me was mine or something the bond had picked up and magnified. The air still smelled wrong—sweet and rotten at the same time, like fruit left too long in a bowl. It didn’t belong here. Not in the nexus. Not after everything we’d just reclaimed between us.“The binding,” Ronan said again, as if repeating the words would make them make sense. “It drew it here.”My mind reached for old lessons: crumbling pages, whispered warnings, obscure footnotes in the archives that more practical witches had skimmed past. Spirits that lurked between worlds. Things that couldn’t break the Veil on their own, so they waited near places where it thinned. Creatures that didn’t waste energy on bodies or storms when they could feed on simpler things.Fear. Doubt. Resentment.“It’s not just using what was already there,” I said, voice low. “It’s been feeding it. Pushing it. Making sure we s

RonanHer fingers were cold in his at first—shock, not fear. He curled his hand around hers, firm and steady, and felt the wrongness in the air draw back a fraction, the way fish scattered when a predator showed its teeth.The smell eased too. That thick, overripe sweetness thinned as their magic settled into the same rhythm. Selene’s silver hum slid along his skin; the earth’s pulse, Mirra’s, steadied under it.“Good,” he muttered, more to whatever was listening than to her. “You don’t get to stand between us and stay comfortable.”The pressure in his mind shifted. The prying presence that had been tugging at his doubts like loose threads recoiled, just a little, from the push of their combined focus.“It wants us to believe we’re contaminated,” he said, voice stronger now. The ocean inside him rolled, heavy and deliberate, drowning some of the whispers. “That what we did to save the Veil ruined what we are. That your light in my water, Mirra’s earth in your bones—” He shook his head