Chapter4
948 Words
The Unraveling
Kael
Training Celine was like trying to tame a flame with bare hands.
She didn't move like a warrior—not yet—but she absorbed faster than anyone he'd taught before. She asked sharp questions, never flinched at the answers, and wielded a blade with the same fury she once held for prophecy. Her visions hadn't stopped, but they had shifted—less violent, more focused.
And every time she screamed in her sleep, Kael was already at her door.
The sanctum wasn’t safe anymore. Lucien had shown them that. So Kael rebuilt the perimeter wards, stacked them with silver-etched runes and old blood, the kind of enchantments he hadn’t used since the southern siege. He even whispered prayers to gods he no longer believed in.
Because he knew what was coming.
And it had teeth.
Celine
The blade was heavier than it looked. Her fingers ached by nightfall, and her shoulders burned, but she didn't stop. She couldn't.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the same thing: a field of ash. A sky torn open. Kael dying beneath a red sun.
If training could keep that from happening, she'd bleed gladly.
“You’re pushing too hard,” Kael told her one night as she collapsed in the practice ring.
“I have to.”
“No. You want to. That’s not the same.”
She looked up at him, breath shallow. “Do you want me to die helpless?”
The silence between them turned sharp.
He knelt beside her, brushed a strand of damp hair from her face.
“I want you to live.”
Then he stood and walked away.
Lucien
He watched the girl train.
Watched the way her body bent and broke and rose again.
Watched Kael’s gaze soften each time he looked at her.
It would be his undoing.
“Send the Hollowborn,” Lucien said.
Damaris stiffened. “They’re not ready.”
Lucien turned to her slowly. “Neither is she. That’s the point.”
Damaris hesitated. Then nodded.
“When?”
Lucien smiled. “At the turning moon. Let them see what their precious sanctuary is really made of.”
He turned back to the glass.
It shimmered with the image of a cracked bell. A falling tower. Fire and feathers.
And the sound of her scream.
Celine
She woke to the stench of smoke.
At first, she thought it was another vision—blurred and surreal—but the heat in the air was real. So was the siren-call of Kael’s voice shouting orders in the distance.
The sanctuary was under attack.
She stumbled from her cot, blade in hand, boots half-laced. The corridor beyond her door glowed orange, shadows flickering like dancers along the walls. She sprinted toward the main hall.
The wards had failed again.
But this time, they hadn’t shattered.
They’d opened.
Kael met her at the end of the corridor, his sword already soaked in black ichor.
“Hollowborn,” he shouted over the roar. “Night-blooded. No hearts. No mercy.”
“Where do you want me?”
He looked at her for one tight second, and then tossed her a second blade. “At my side.”
The Battle
The Hollowborn weren’t like anything Celine had seen—not in visions, not in dreams. Their eyes glowed violet, their mouths too wide, too wrong. They moved without sound, without soul. Smoke curled from their limbs like steam.
And they were fast.
She killed her first one by instinct—drove the blade up through its jaw as it lunged. It didn’t scream. Just evaporated.
Kael fought like a storm beside her. Clean. Controlled. Every swing of his blade was a decision. Every kill a promise.
The sanctuary trembled.
Wolves from the inner sanctum poured in to help. Fae shadows blinked through walls. Even the old ones—the librarians, the scribes—threw spells that cracked the floor.
Still, they were losing ground.
Until Celine screamed.
The Vision
It didn’t take her this time.
She took it.
She grabbed the threads mid-fight and pulled.
Time buckled.
Suddenly, she was standing outside herself, watching the battle unfold with clarity.
A Hollowborn leaped toward Kael from behind—
She moved.
Her body obeyed her before the vision ended. She tackled Kael to the side, blade slicing upward.
And the creature shattered midair.
Kael blinked, stunned.
“You saw that?”
She nodded, chest heaving. “Before it happened.”
He stared at her.
And then he smiled.
Lucien
“She’s bending time,” Damaris said. “She shouldn’t be able to yet.”
Lucien leaned back in his chair. “She’s learning fast.”
He tapped his finger against the armrest. Thoughtful. Curious.
“Pull the Hollowborn back.”
Damaris blinked. “You’re retreating?”
“No. I’m baiting.”
He stood.
“Now we test her loyalty.”
Celine
When the last of the Hollowborn dissolved, the sanctuary was in shambles.
The south wing had collapsed. Three wardsmen were dead. Dozens injured. And the central altar—the one carved from stardust and memory—was cracked.
Kael sat beside her on the stone steps, both of them covered in soot and blood. Her head rested on his shoulder, and his hand was wrapped around hers.
“We survived,” she murmured.
“For now.”
She turned to him. “You think he’ll come himself next time?”
Kael’s jaw tightened. “I hope he does.”
She nodded.
And said nothing of the final image she saw in the vision—
Kael bleeding beneath a black sky.
Lucien’s hand on her shoulder.
And her eyes glowing gold.
- Writer
