Lahat ng Kabanata ng Fractured: Kabanata 81 - Kabanata 90

SeleneThe 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

SeleneFor a heartbeat, I forgot how to stand.The vision hit so hard my legs simply… forgot themselves. One second I was on my feet, fingers laced with Ronan’s, the next the world tilted and my knees buckled.Except it wasn’t the world that tilted.It was him.In the vision, Ronan stood exactly where he was now, in the center of the nexus, light catching in his dark hair, shoulders set in that familiar, unyielding line. But his eyes—gods, his eyes—were wrong. The grey I knew, stormy and alive, had gone flat. Cold. He looked at me like I was a stranger. Like I was something he’d scraped off his boot.“You’ve made me less,” the vision-Ronan said, his voice like ice on the surface of a dead sea. “Your light has diluted my power. Your doubts have tethered me. I was more before you.”My own magic shrank back from his in the vision, as if it believed him. The silver thread between us kinked, went dull. The ground under my feet gave way and there was nothing beneath me but a dark, endless d

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

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

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.