Chapter 21: The Choice Beneath the Skin
Time broke.
Carrow's blade hung in the air, frozen between us, the edge glinting with the red light from the cracks below. The girl's breath ghosted against my lips, her words coiling through my head like smoke.
"Choose."
The heartbeat drowned out everything else. Each pulse tore through me, through the snow, through the air itself, until I could no longer tell if I stood on solid ground or the surface of some vast lung inhaling the world.
Carrow moved first.
His sword came down with a cry that was not rage but grief. The watchers lunged to intercept, but I raised my hand before they reached him. The breath—my breath—answered.
A wave of shadow rippled outward, colliding with his swing. Steel met darkness. The sound was like thunder cracking through bone. Carrow staggered but did not fall. He forced his way through the black flame, his face twisted, eyes burning with everything he still believed I could be.
"Fight it!" he roared. "You're not its puppet!"
His words struck deep. Somewhere under the tide of power, I wanted to believe him. But the girl's hand still rested at my jaw, steady, sure, soft.
"I told you," she whispered, "it cannot be fought. Only carried. Only shared."
Her other hand found mine. Power flared between our palms—cold and bright, like moonlight burning through water. My veins lit beneath my skin, black and silver. The shadows around us bent low, bowing.
Carrow's sword fell to his side. His eyes widened, disbelief hollowing his face. "Gods… she's eating you alive."
The girl smiled faintly, sadness hiding beneath the curve of her lips. "He thinks in hunger and death," she murmured. "But this is not devouring. It is becoming."
Her fingers slipped to the back of my neck, drawing me closer. For a heartbeat, I forgot the world, the watchers, the cracks, the war. There was only her—her breath, her eyes, her warmth that felt like both comfort and fire.
And I kissed her.
The world split open.
The snow lifted, suspended midair. The watchers dropped to their knees. The heartbeat surged until it was not sound but sight—light pulsing from beneath the ground, through the cracks, through me.
Carrow cried out, shielding his eyes. "What have you done?"
When I broke from her, the air between us shimmered. My breath no longer fogged in the cold—it glowed. Threads of black fire coiled from my mouth, from my skin, drifting upward into the waiting sky.
The girl's voice was quiet now, almost tender. "You see it, don't you? You are not chosen by chance. You were made for this. The breath was not born from the earth."
I turned to her, heart hammering. "Then where?"
Her eyes softened with something that might have been sorrow. "From you. Long ago."
The ground trembled harder. The heartbeat faltered, then roared back stronger, faster—no longer calm, but erratic. The watchers raised their heads, confusion breaking their perfect stillness.
Carrow took a step forward. "What does she mean?"
The girl smiled, though her eyes glistened with tears. "He was the first vessel. Before memory. Before names."
Carrow froze. "You're saying he—"
"Yes," she whispered. "He breathed it into the world once. And now the world breathes it back."
The truth hit me like a blade. Visions flashed through my mind—dark skies, rivers of ash, my own hands pressed against the soil as something vast and living exhaled through me. A circle. Endless.
Carrow's voice broke the spell. "If that's true, then you're not saving him—you're binding him to it forever."
The girl's expression flickered, sorrow warring with something colder. "He cannot be saved. Only completed."
Carrow raised his sword again. "Then I'll stop it."
But before he could take another step, the earth itself opened. A fissure split between us, glowing crimson and gold. From its depths rose a sound—a whisper, vast and endless, shaped in my voice.
I felt it speak through me:
"Carrow."
He froze, eyes wide, trembling.
The girl turned toward me, her tears glinting like shards of glass. "It remembers."
And for the first time, I understood—this was not a power.
It was memory.
It had been calling my name because it was mine.
The crack widened. The air shook.
Carrow took one step back, sword trembling. "Brother… what are you?"
I looked at my hands. They burned with light and shadow both. The girl's fingers laced through mine, gentle and certain.
"I think," I whispered, "I'm remembering."
The earth exhaled.
And the world went black.
"— To Be Continued —"
"Author : Share your thoughts, your feedback keeps the story alive."