Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 111 - Chapitre 120

We both turned back toward the reflection.It stared at me now with eerie calm, and slowly, almost gently, its mouth began to move again.“You’re still clinging to the idea that you’re separate. That there’s a choice.”“There is,” I snapped aloud, fury flashing in my chest like a flare.The reflection’s face tilted, amused. Then it said,“If there were, you wouldn’t still be standing here.”A tremor rippled through the ground. The obsidian cracked wider beneath our feet.Maxwell’s breath was ragged. “This is a trap, Lena. A designed one. It's feeding on your doubt.”“But what if it’s not just doubt?” I whispered. “What if it’s the truth?”He stepped in front of me. “Then we fight it. You don’t owe that thing your fear.”The ground split between us and the mirror. A fissure formed like a mouth trying to swallow the space whole.And then—suddenly—another voice.“Step back, both of you.”I turned sharply.From the fog came a woman. Cloaked in deep gray, her presence humming with ancient

We didn’t head back to the estate. Not yet.I needed space. Distance. The kind of silence that doesn’t come from isolation, but from being far enough from expectation that you can breathe again. Maxwell didn’t ask questions when I turned the path away from home. He just walked beside me, blade on his hip, eyes always scanning the horizon.It was late afternoon when we found the old chapel.Or what was left of it.It was half-swallowed by the earth, the roof caved in, ivy crawling up through cracked stone like veins across a dying body. The stained-glass windows were mostly shattered, but one remained intact—a single panel showing a wolf curled around a glowing star. I didn’t recognize the symbol.But it felt… familiar.We stepped inside.Dust clung to the air, heavy and undisturbed. The pews were rotted through, the altar split by lightning or something like it. But there was peace here, buried under ruin. The kind that comes after fire takes everything and leaves only the truth behin

We didn’t speak for a long time after she vanished. The chapel returned to silence, but it wasn’t peace—it was the kind of silence that settles in after something sacred is broken.Maxwell stayed near the altar, his blade still unsheathed, like she might return at any second. I sat where I was, hands slack in my lap, head low, like I’d just walked out of my funeral.“You okay?” he finally asked.“No,” I said honestly. “But I’m aware. For once.”He lowered the blade. “That wasn’t just a vision, was it?”“No. She was real.”Max sat down across from me. “So what do we do about a version of you who’s already made all the choices you’re still questioning?”I didn’t answer at first. My mind was still parsing the confrontation, reliving each word, the heat behind her eyes, the way she moved like certainty was oxygen. “You remember how I told you the first seal cracked in my dreams?”“Yeah.”“Well, she’s been dreaming through them, too. But from the other side. I don’t think she was just born

By first light, we were already moving. The path to the ruins cut through dense, brittle woods. Nature had reclaimed much of the road, ivy curling up through cracked stone, tree roots splitting once-paved ground. But I remembered the way, at least what remained of it. I remembered walking it as a child, held by my father's hand, back when the Sanctum was still alive before the seals had started to hum. Before they began to break.Now, only one seal remained.And it was buried somewhere beneath the rubble we were heading toward.Maxwell kept pace beside me, silent but alert. He hadn’t said much since we left camp. Neither had I. There wasn’t much left to say that hadn’t already been whispered in firelight the night before. We both knew what this place meant, not just to us, but to the shape of everything still to come.When the Sanctum came into view, I felt the breath leave my lungs.It was worse than I remembered.The outer arch had collapsed. The great doors—once carved with runes t

I held the key in both hands, its weight more emotional than physical. Though it looked like it was made of woven light, it felt dense, anchored by every choice I had made, every fear I’d conquered, every version of me I’d resisted becoming. It pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, as if it were syncing itself to me, not the other way around.Maxwell stood across from me, arms crossed, jaw set. He hadn’t spoken since I lifted it."You’re waiting for me to say something," I said softly.His gaze didn’t move from the key. “I’m waiting for you to feel something. The kind of certainty you usually hide behind sarcasm or strategy. What do you feel, Lena?”I let the silence linger.“I feel... scared,” I admitted. “Not of the key. Not even what it opens. I’m scared of what it will ask of me once it does. Of what I’ll have to become to use it.”He nodded slowly. “Good. That means you’re still you.”“Still?” I gave a tired smile. “Do you think I’m changing?”He met my eyes now, gently. “I think y