Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
Robes burned at the hem. Hair streaked with soot and silver. Skin weathered, but not aged. Not like time had passed. More like time had… paused. Watched. Waited.
My heart kicked once.
Eva straightened beside me. “That’s-“
“Master Calren,” Bastain said flatly.
The name stilled the air.
The name from old textbooks. From academy stories. From whispers about the fire. Calren. An instructor once sworn to the highest tier of the Gate. Vanished the day it fell. No body had ever been found.
The man bowed his head. “Bastain. You’ve grown bitter.”
“I’ve earned it.”
“And you,” he said, turning his gaze to me, and his eyes-gods-his eyes were like leyline glass. Clear. Unreadable. “You are the one Serina dreamt of.”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I could.
He looked like a ghost carved out of memory. And when he stepped closer, something in the flames beneath my skin shivered.
“You should not be alive,” Bastain said coldly.
“And yet I am. I followed the ash trails. I walked through the cracked stone and clawed my way through time. I watched from the Veil’s edge when you built this stronghold. I saw your new Sovereign bleed fire through stone and air.”
Eva narrowed her eyes. “Why now?”
He turned to her. “Because now, the final tether prepares to burn.”
The room fell silent.
“You know of Aedric?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. bb vouchers
He gave a slow nod. “Better than most. I was Serina’s second. Her advisor in the final cycle. The one who warned her… that her brother’s hunger could never be contained.”
Bastain’s stance tensed beside me.
“And yet you did nothing,” he said.
“I was cast out before the fire began,” Calren replied, his voice steady, too calm. “I was not there to stop it. But I was there long enough to know-he was never meant to be Sovereign. Not him.”
Eva crossed her arms. “So who was?”
Calren looked at me.
And my chest tightened.
“The child?” I asked, almost breathless.
He shook his head. “No. Not yet. The child is the convergence. The flame that will decide whether the past burns away… or returns. But it is not her burden to bear alone.”
Something in his words chilled me. They felt too smooth. Like rehearsed warnings meant to wrap around the truth without ever touching it.
“You said something about a tether,” Eva pushed.
“The Triad you’ve formed,” he said. “Flame, Blood, Veil. Once the child is born, it will complete a cycle older than Sovereignty itself. Three cannot remain. Not if the Gate is to close.”
I stepped forward. “What are you saying?”
“One of you will die,” he answered simply. “And if you do not choose, the flame will.”
The world narrowed around me. I felt Bastain’s tension beside me, Eva’s sharp inhale. But I couldn’t feel the floor, Couldn’t feel the air.
“You expect us to believe this,” Bastain growled.
“I expect you to prepare,” Calren said. “You do not need to trust me. But you should fear the truth.”
Then he bowed, once, and walked past us, deeper into the stronghold like he’d always belonged there.
And no one stopped him.
I didn’t sleep.
9:07 Tue, Sep 16
:
Not because of fear. But because of what I saw in Calren’s face. That expression of resignation. Of waiting. Like he already knew how this would end.
Bastain ordered a magical lock around my quarters, though I didn’t ask for it. Nate hadn’t returned yet. He’d been avoiding me again since the mark first flared on my stomach. Like seeing it reminded him that he couldn’t protect me from what was coming.
Or worse-like he knew he’d be the one to burn.
The night stretched long.
I walked the halls once, then again, eyes skimming the corners of the stronghold. Old candlelight flickered. Faint leyline hums beat beneath the stone. The child inside me stirred with every ripple-never asleep now. Always… listening.
I passed Ethan’s door. Paused.
He wasn’t inside.
The bed was made.
The sheets untouched.
I turned.
And I saw them.
Down the far corridor. Just before the training wing. A shadow, cloaked in ash-colored robes.
Calren.
He stood with his hand hovering above Ethan’s forehead. Ethan’s eyes were closed-too still. Not unconscious. Not dreaming. Somewhere… in between.
“No,” I whispered.
I started toward them, but the air shifted.
A crack of energy raced up the walls like a spark on dry wood. The torchlight dimmed. The corridor pulsed.
And just as Calren’s hand touched Ethan’s skin-
Light exploded from the contact.
Violet. And gold.
I stumbled back as Ethan’s body jerked upright-but his eyes didn’t open.
A mark formed on his skin.
Not burned.
9:07 Tue, Sep 16
Not inked.
Written.
:
A sigil across his temple, spiraling down his neck, glowing faintly like breath caught in stone.
Calren stepped back, unshaken.
I reached for Ethan-but stopped just shy of touching him.
“What did you do?” I breathed.
Calren turned slowly, and for the first time since he arrived… he smiled.
“He’s the key.”
“To what?”
“To the choice that must come.”
I clenched my fists, the dagger-shaped ache still buried in my core. “If you touch him again-“
“I won’t need to,” Calren said calmly. “The mark is already written. And the flame has already chosen.”
Before I could demand more, he turned and disappeared into the dark wing of the stronghold.
I turned to Ethan, whose breathing had begun to return to normal-shallow and fast, like he’d just been dragged from drowning.
He didn’t wake.
Not fully.
But the mark remained.
And I knew, without needing a seer or a prophecy to confirm it…
Everything had just changed.
And the death Calren warned us of-
It had already started writing itself.
*Jiselle*
The fire cracked low in the corner brazier, but its warmth felt far away, like it couldn’t reach through the thick tension pressing between everyone.
Nate stood near the far wall, arms crossed and jaw tight, pacing back and forth like a caged wolf waiting to snap. Bastain sat at the edge of the table, a stack of old parchments spread before him, most of them half-charred or marked with ink in languages even he barely translated.
They’d been at it for over an hour-going in circles about how best to reinforce the leyline barriers now that Aedric’s reach was growing stronger through whatever tether had started forming between him and Ethan. And that tether… it wasn’t just a theory anymore. It was visible now. Felt.
“We can’t seal the east corridor with another Gate sigil,” Nate argued, voice tight. “It’ll draw her energy again, and she’s already-“
“She’s stronger now than when the first circle was burned,” Bastain cut in, not unkindly, but firm. “You know what the child’s presence has done. The leyline stabilizes around her. The mark on her stomach is evidence of that.”
Nate’s eyes flicked toward me-only for a second-but it was enough to make my skin crawl. Not because he doubted me. No. But because I saw it again, the thing he wouldn’t say aloud.
He was afraid of me.
Or maybe not of me exactly… but of what I was becoming.
“I’m not using her again to power some ancient spellwork,” he muttered, and this time his voice was lower. Strained. “She nearly passed out last time, and you said-“
“I said,” Bastain interrupted, “that the Gate reacted to her in ways we don’t fully understand. That’s why we’re testing leyline placement. It’s not about using her. It’s about protecting her.”
“Then maybe let her rest.”
“I’m right here, you know,” I said softly, my voice cutting through their argument like a blade dulled by exhaustion. “You could ask me what I want.”
Both of them stopped. Bastain dropped his gaze like he realized too late that he’d overstepped. Nate… Nate didn’t look at me at all.
And I didn’t need the bond to know why.
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