Chapter 110: The Face of the Fallen
Rowan didn’t move.
The Bonecaster stepped forward, the hem of her robe floating above the bloodied ground, untouched. “I warned you,” her voice rasped, sharp and ancient. “You thought light would be enough to undo me?”
Her witches began chanting in a language that felt wrong just to hear. The light from Seren’s trap flickered.
Giselle skidded to Rowan’s side, dropping to her knees. His wolf had shifted back—his human form lay bloodied, one arm twisted beneath him, blood pooling beneath his ribs.
“Rowan,” she whispered, her voice thick with horror. “Look at me—look at me!”
He blinked up at her, unfocused, his lips stained with red. “Giselle…”
“Don’t talk. Just breathe.” Her hands pressed over his wound, frantic, shaking. “You’re going to be fine. Do you hear me? I won’t let you die.”
Behind her, the Bonecaster’s witches raised their hands again.
But this time, they were looking at Giselle.
The air shimmered with dark magic, thick enough to taste. Bitter and cold.
Giselle rose from Rowan’s side, her sword clutched in trembling hands, the blade catching faint glints of the rising sun. Her eyes never left the Bonecaster or the three witches surrounding her in a loose, protective triangle—each of them murmuring words laced with rot and shadow, their palms glowing with an oily darkness that pressed against the edges of Seren’s trap like waves against glass.
The golden bands that held the Bonecaster’s wolves in place were already starting to flicker.
One strand snapped. Then another.
Her wolf surged beneath her skin, teeth bared. ‘If they unravel the trap completely, the valley will fall.’
Giselle’s heart thundered. Rowan was behind her—hurt, bleeding, but breathing. The battle still raged at the valley’s edges. But *this*—this circle of witches—*this* was the source of it all.
She exhaled slowly, centering herself.
Three witches.
The one on the left held fire in her hands, thin and sharp like a dagger. Fast.
The middle one whispered to the earth, calling shadows that slithered beneath the grass. Stealth.
The rightmost witch held a bowl of blood and bone, weaving thick pulses of power. Defense.
Giselle tightened her grip on her sword. ‘Take out the one controlling the shadows first—cut off their ground support. Then move left and—’
The Bonecaster moved.
Her hands rose in slow, elegant arcs, weaving something invisible in the air.
A ripple of magic passed through the clearing like a cold wind brushing the skin. It didn’t attack—it *created*. A form began to coalesce between her and the witches. A shimmer of light… and then flesh.
Giselle’s breath caught.
A woman appeared. Not a ghost. Not a vision. *Real.*
She stood just in front of the Bonecaster, her brown eyes wide and familiar, her long curls wild in the breeze that whirled around the battlefield.
“*Mom?*” Giselle’s voice cracked, breaking across her lips like glass.
Her sword dropped an inch. Her feet locked in place. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“Mom,” she whispered again, louder this time—desperate, raw.
The battlefield seemed to fall away, the chaos dimming to a distant echo as Giselle’s eyes locked onto her mother’s form—solid, whole, and standing in the eye of the storm. Time slowed. For a single, trembling breath, she dared to believe it wasn’t a trick.
Her mother stood amidst the Bonecaster’s witches, her hair whipping around her face in the wind, robes billowing with the fury of the fight. There was no fear in her eyes, only sorrow. A bone-deep sadness that pierced Giselle like a blade.
Her mother’s gaze softened. “Giselle.”
But then, the world shifted again, splintering at the sound of her mother’s next words as she turned to the Bonecaster and said with a tired smile, “Good to see you, sister.”
The ground might as well have opened beneath her feet.
Sister?
Giselle blinked, her sword dipping as the full weight of that word settled onto her shoulders. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and the storm of thoughts in her head silenced, leaving only that truth ringing in her skull.
The Bonecaster… is my aunt?
The Bonecaster sneered, her face twisting with bitter amusement. “It was smart of you to stop using your magic,” she said, voice sharp and cold as winter wind. “It kept you hidden from me all this time. But that ends tonight.”
She turned her unnerving gaze to Giselle, and the power that rippled around her sent ice down her spine.
“You have a choice, little wolf,” the Bonecaster called. “You can walk away from this. Come with your mother. Come with me. Let this foolish war die here in the dirt. Or stay with him”—she jerked her chin toward Rowan’s slumped body nearby—“and die beside him. Die with all of them.”
Giselle couldn’t breathe.
This was it.
Avella’s voice surfaced in her mind like a guiding light through a fog: *“So long as you choose him—again and again, even when it’s hard, even when it hurts—he won’t fall. And if he doesn’t fall, neither will this pack.”*
This is what she meant.
This choice.
The moment where her heart would shatter either way.
She had spent her life trying to save her mother. Fighting, sacrificing, hoping. And here she was—alive, real—after everything. After all they’d endured. Could she really turn her back on her now? Could she live with herself if she watched the life drain from her mother’s eyes?
Tears blurred her vision. Her hand shook around the hilt of the sword Avella had gifted her.
Then her mother moved.
Her eyes met Giselle’s one last time—glassy, wet with tears—and her lips trembled as she whispered, “I love you, Giselle. Live your life happy.”
And before Giselle could even scream, she twisted in her sister’s grip, summoning a blinding surge of magic from deep within her. Light poured out of her body, pure and radiant—like the sun burning through a storm.
The Bonecaster shrieked in rage, raising her hands to shield herself—but the blast hit her square in the chest, throwing her backward in a wave of searing energy that cracked the air with sound.
Giselle’s mother crumpled.
“No!” Giselle bolted forward, catching her mother’s body before it hit the bloodied earth. She fell to her knees, cradling her mother in her arms. The warmth of magic still pulsed faintly beneath her skin, but it was already fading.
Tears streamed down Giselle’s face as realization dawned.
That sickness… the years of frailty, the constant exhaustion, the pale skin and tired eyes… It hadn’t been an illness.
It had been the magic.
Her mother had sealed it away, locked it deep within herself—cutting off a part of who she was to stay hidden. To keep them safe. That power, coiled and unnatural, had eaten her alive from the inside.
Another sacrifice. One more thing her mother had given up… for them.
“Mama…” Giselle sobbed, brushing the hair from her mother’s damp brow.
Her mother’s eyes fluttered open for just a second longer. She smiled faintly.
“Always choose love,” she whispered.
And then she was gone.
The sky split open with thunder. Magic trembled in the air.
Giselle screamed—grief and fury twisting together as her head lifted toward the Bonecaster. The woman was staggering to her feet, charred but alive.
But Giselle was no longer afraid.
She placed her mother’s body gently on the ground, stood, and lifted her sword.
Her wolf surged forward inside her, full of power and fire.
This was no longer just about survival.
This was justice.
This was vengeance.
This was the final stand.
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