Chapter 21 “The Fracture”
I used to think love was something you could fight for — something that, if you held on tightly enough, wouldn’t slip away.
But lately, it feels like I’m holding smoke.
Elera drifts further from me each day. She moves through the cabin like a ghost, her eyes always somewhere else — like she’s listening to something I can’t hear.
I watch her when she sleeps, how her fingers twitch as though she’s reaching for someone. Her lips part, whispering a name I can’t bring myself to say out loud.
Aiden.
Even thinking it feels like swallowing glass.
I tell myself she’s confused. That whatever connection she feels is a trick — a leftover echo from the night she vanished into that cursed light. But the truth gnaws at me: there’s something real about it. Something that no amount of denial can undo.
And it’s tearing me apart.
Tonight, the fire burns low in the hearth. The forest hums outside — that strange, silver rhythm that’s begun to rise with the moon. Elera sits near the window, tracing invisible shapes against the glass.
I finally ask, “When you close your eyes… do you see him?”
She freezes, her breath catching. “Liam—”
“Just tell me.” My voice cracks more than I want it to. “I see the way you look when it happens. Like you’re somewhere else. Like I don’t exist.”
Her shoulders slump, and for a moment, I almost wish she’d lie to me. But she doesn’t. “I don’t try to see him. It just happens.”
Something inside me breaks.
“You said you didn’t know him,” I say quietly. “You said you didn’t remember.”
“I don’t,” she whispers. “But when I hear him… it feels like I’ve always known him.”
The words hit harder than any blade. I turn away before she sees what they do to me.
“I’ll give you space,” I manage to say, though my voice sounds hollow. “Maybe that’s what you need.”
But what I really mean is — maybe that’s what I need, to stop loving someone who’s already gone.
I leave the cabin and walk into the forest. The air is cold and damp, thick with that silver glow that’s been spreading lately. I don’t know where I’m going — only that I can’t stay still.
After a while, I hear a voice. Not Elera’s. Softer. Older.
“You burn too brightly, child of men,” it says.
I turn sharply. “Who’s there?”
The mist parts, and a woman steps out from between the trees. Her hair is white as frost, her eyes like smoke. I’ve seen her before — once, when Elera was still missing. A whisper in a dream, a shadow that spoke of choices and consequences.
Now she’s real.
“You shouldn’t wander here,” I say, my hand instinctively reaching for the knife at my belt.
“I could say the same to you,” she replies, smiling faintly. “But your pain called to me. It always does.”
Her gaze sharpens. “You love her still.”
I swallow hard. “More than my own life.”
“And yet she’s slipping from you.”
The way she says it — not as judgment, but as fact — makes my chest ache. “She’s… connected to someone. Something I can’t fight.”
“Everything can be fought,” the woman says softly. “Even fate.”
I hesitate. “Who are you?”
“Names are for the living,” she murmurs, stepping closer. “But you may call me what others once did — The Seer of Thorns.”
The title stirs something in my memory. Stories told by the elders, about witches who could see across realms, who could sever bonds made by gods themselves.
My heart begins to pound. “Can you—”
“Break it?” She smiles, her teeth sharp against the mist. “Yes. But all bonds demand balance. If one is broken, another must bleed.”
I should walk away. Every instinct screams that this is wrong. But then I think of Elera — the way she flinches when I touch her now, the way her eyes glow when she whispers his name.
“What would it cost?” I ask quietly.
The Seer studies me for a long time. “Not your life,” she says at last. “Something greater. Your light. Your wolf.”
“My—”
“You carry no beast, do you?” she says with mild surprise. “You are human. Mortal. But the love inside you burns bright enough to mirror a wolf’s soul. I can use that.”
A cold shiver crawls up my spine. “And what happens to her?”
“She will live,” the Seer says. “Free of him. Free to love again.”
The temptation claws through me, cruel and sweet. Free to love again.
I look down at my hands, trembling. “If I do this… she’ll never know?”
“She will know peace,” the Seer answers. “That is all that matters.”
For a long time, I stand there, listening to the wind whisper through the trees. Somewhere far away, a wolf howls — low and mournful.
I close my eyes. “What do I need to do?”
The Seer’s smile deepens. “When the moons align, bring me something that carries both your heartbeat and hers. A keepsake. A token of what you shared. The rest… will be mine to unmake.”
When I return to the cabin, the fire has gone out. Elera is asleep on the couch, her hand resting against the mark at her collarbone. Even in sleep, it glows faintly, pulsing like a living thing.
I kneel beside her, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
“I just want you back,” I whisper. “Just you.”
Her lips part, and for a heartbeat, I think she hears me.
But then she murmurs in her sleep, soft and sure. “Aiden…”
My chest tightens.
I rise slowly, my hand trembling as I reach for the silver pendant lying on the table — the one I gave her when we were children. She never takes it off, except tonight.
I close my fist around it, the edges cutting into my palm.
Something in me fractures, quiet but final.
If love won’t keep her here, then I’ll break whatever dares to take her from me.
Even if it means burning the world to ash.