Bella floated in darkness.
Not the comforting kind that cradled you to sleep—but a suffocating, endless void where time didn't exist. Her limbs felt weightless. Her breath—gone. Her heart—silent.
She didn't know where she was.
Until she saw it.
A crown, hovering before her, spinning slowly in midair. It was not made of gold or jewels—but of woven bone and burning threads, each flame whispering a name she didn't recognize… but somehow remembered.
One by one, the flames flickered out, until only a single ember remained.
Her name.
Isadora.
Then everything collapsed into light.
Bella gasped, her eyes snapping open.
The world returned in fragments. Pine needles. The copper scent of blood. Moonlight filtering through broken branches.
And Kael's arms around her.
"You're awake," he whispered, his voice hoarse and tight. "Thank the stars."
Her mouth felt like cotton, but her body burned—from the inside out.
"What happened…?"
Kael's brow furrowed as he helped her sit up.
"You don't remember?"
She blinked, disoriented. Her fingers brushed the center of her chest.
The mark.
A glowing sigil still pulsed over her heart—twelve arcs in a perfect circle, and now… a thirteenth line, burning brighter than the rest.
"What is this?" she asked, voice thin.
Kael hesitated.
"It's the Witch Crown. The true one. It doesn't rest on your head… it's carved into your soul."
Bella flinched.
"This… thing is inside me?"
"No. You are becoming it."
She stared at him, chest rising and falling rapidly.
"That's insane."
Kael ran a hand through his blood-matted hair.
"So is coming back from the dead. And slaying a Devourer."
Bella touched her temple, her head throbbing with fragments of memory. Her sister's face. The chants. The burning throne.
And something else.
A cold presence… watching her from beneath the mark.
"Kael," she whispered, "something's wrong. I felt it. It wasn't just the Devourer. Something is still watching me—from inside."
Kael looked at her then—not like a protector, but like a soldier preparing for war.
"Then we need to move. Now."
He helped her stand. Every step was an effort. Her muscles ached. The magic curled beneath her skin like a beast in a cage.
As they moved deeper into the forest, the trees grew older. Taller. The mist returned—thicker now, laced with violet glimmers that responded to her heartbeat.
Eventually, they reached a clearing with a stone circle buried beneath moss and wildflowers.
Kael stopped.
"This is the Witchgate. An ancient portal. It'll take us to the Cradle—the heart of the Witchlands."
Bella hesitated.
"What's waiting for us there?"
Kael exhaled.
"Answers. But also… enemies. Many of them still believe you're dead. Or worse—possessed."
She blinked.
"By what?"
"The Thirteenth Flame," he said quietly. "A forbidden spirit. The reason your crown was sealed. The thing that once devoured whole covens."
He stepped into the stone circle and extended a hand.
"Ready?"
Bella stared at his hand—then down at her own. The sigil still glowed.
Ready or not, she thought. This is who I am now.
She stepped forward—
—and the ground exploded beneath them.
Chains shot up from the earth, coiling around Bella's wrists, her ankles, her throat. Kael tried to reach her—but a wall of violet fire erupted, throwing him backward.
The air grew ice-cold.
A voice echoed through the mist.
"You carry the mark."
Bella gasped as the chains lifted her off the ground. Her body dangled, the fire licking her skin without burning it.
The mist parted.
And from the trees stepped a man in a bone-white cloak, face hidden behind a mask carved from antler and obsidian.
"Who are you?" she croaked.
He tilted his head slowly.
"I am the Warden of the Crown. And you, girl… are an abomination."
He raised a black staff—and the sigil over Bella's chest flared.
"What are you doing to me?!"
Kael scrambled toward them.
"Let her go!"
The Warden ignored him.
"If the Thirteenth Sigil has awakened, then the Queen of Ashes must be judged… and burned."
Bella screamed as the mark exploded in light, sending shockwaves through the forest.
Kael reached her just as the chains pulled her into the ground, vanishing in a burst of violet flame.
The stone circle cracked open.
And Bella was gone.