Chapter 111: The Breaking Point
The moment her mother’s soul slipped from the world, something inside Giselle snapped.
Not shattered—no, this was something deeper. Something that had been caged for too long. The sorrow twisted with rage, and the rage gave way to purpose. Her heart felt like it had caught fire, and that fire spread to her limbs, her fingertips buzzing with power too immense for her body to understand. Her wolf howled inside her, not in grief—but in fury.
The wind swirled with her rising magic, crackling with energy that made the very air tremble.
Giselle straightened slowly, her sword rising with her, glowing faintly with the echo of her mother's final burst of power. Her eyes—no longer wide with fear or pain—narrowed on the figure standing just beyond her mother’s still form.
The Bonecaster.
Her aunt.
Giselle’s lips curled back in a snarl. “You’re going to die today.”
The Bonecaster cradled her left arm against her burned side, fingers twitching with unstable magic. Her long dark hair clung to her sweat-slick skin, face mottled with ash and blood. And yet, her eyes—those maniacal, serpentine eyes—burned bright with rage as they dropped to the body at her feet.
“You will pay for what your mother has done today,” the Bonecaster hissed, her voice trembling with a fury that couldn’t mask the pain she was in.
Two of her witches flanked her, their forms shifting out of the smoke like shadows with substance. The third one—the one closest to the blast—lay sprawled and unmoving, blood staining the dirt around her head. The remaining two were breathing hard, drained but still armed with dark magic swirling around their hands.
But Giselle didn’t flinch.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t care.
She could feel something new inside her—an ancient hum in her blood that belonged to more than just the wolf in her soul. A magic she had never touched before, awakened now in the wake of loss.
She should have felt overwhelmed by it. Should have been afraid of this storm brewing inside of her.
But she wasn’t.
She felt… steady.
Whole.
Her feet shifted apart slightly, blade rising into a battle-ready stance as the ground pulsed faintly beneath her. The very earth was responding to her now, whispering its secrets up through her soles.
She stared down her aunt with a lethal calm. “My mother gave everything to protect me. To protect this place. And now you stand here, with her blood on your hands, thinking I’ll let you leave this mountain alive?”
The Bonecaster bared her teeth, face twisting in hatred.
“You have no idea what I am,” she growled.
“No,” Giselle agreed. “But you’re about to find out what *I* am.”
And for the first time, the Bonecaster hesitated.
Because Giselle was no longer just a rogue wolf turned Luna.
She was a daughter of magic.
A protector of her pack.
And now—she was wrath incarnate.
The wind picked up again, howling through the valley as if echoing her fury. Behind her, the sounds of battle roared on, steel against fang, howl against scream—but here, in this clearing above her mother’s body, time slowed to the space between heartbeats.
Giselle’s grip on her sword tightened.
She was ready to end this.
Giselle could feel the weight of the sword shift in her grip, the steel vibrating as it responded to her fury—no, to her purpose.
She didn’t question it.
Instead, she closed her eyes for a heartbeat and reached inward, letting her magic rise like a wave. She let it flood into her chest, then her arms, then her fingers, and finally—into the blade.
A pulse of heat surged through the metal.
Her breath caught as the sword shimmered, the faint purple-blue glow of Avella’s enchantment weaving together with the golden-silver threads of her own. The energy swirled like a storm caught in the steel’s core, the runes along its spine igniting one by one with light.
And then—lightness.
The sword no longer felt heavy in her hands. No longer sluggish or foreign. It felt like it belonged to her.
As if it had always been waiting for this.
Giselle stared down at it in awe, the blade gleaming like starlight in her grip. Her fingers curled tighter around the hilt, and something inside her clicked into place—calm, certain, unshakable.
She lifted her gaze to the Bonecaster and the two witches still standing before her.
No fear stirred inside her.
Only fire.
With a snarl ripping from her throat, she threw her head back and let out a furious cry, the kind of sound that shook the trees and made the battlefield fall still. And then—she ran.
Faster than she ever had before.
The world blurred around her, wind rushing past her ears as she flew across the clearing. Her glowing blade became a streak of light in her wake. The two witches lifted their hands in unison, dark magic sparking to life between their palms, their lips moving in tandem to chant a warding curse. Arcs of sickly green and black shot forward, lashing through the air like whips.
Giselle didn’t slow.
Their spells hit her like a wall—crackling, screaming, fighting to push her back.
But her magic burned brighter.
The light in her sword flared, absorbing the first blast and then the second, throwing sparks across the battlefield like a meteor storm. The force of it made her stumble for a half-step—but her feet never stopped moving.
Her jaw clenched, sweat dripping down her brow as she pressed forward, muscles trembling against the pressure. Step by step, she pushed through the storm of darkness, her power meeting theirs in a violent struggle that lit up the space between them.
The witches screamed in unison, their eyes wide with disbelief as they realized their magic wasn’t holding her back—it was losing.
The Bonecaster stood just behind them, her burned body trembling, her one good hand twitching with magic she hadn’t yet cast.
She watched her niece with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Impossible…” she whispered.
But Giselle wasn’t listening.
With one final push, she surged forward—her blade swinging through the final veil of dark magic and cutting through flesh with a hiss like torn silk. The momentum carried her through both witches in one clean arc, their bodies collapsing to the earth behind her, eyes still frozen in terror.
Blood misted the air around her as she pivoted on her heel, her blade already rising again—this time to the Bonecaster’s throat.
The tip of the sword pressed into the hollow of her aunt’s neck, and Giselle’s growl rolled out from deep in her chest, savage and low and furious.
The battlefield had gone still again.
Even the wind dared not speak.
The Bonecaster's mouth parted, whether to plead or curse, Giselle didn’t care. Her voice sliced through the silence, a sharp promise of vengeance fulfilled. “You killed my mother. You tried to destroy my home. And now—you’re going to find out just how wrong that was.”
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