MARKED FOR PRETEND - Chapter 37: Chapter 37

The scent of bloodroot and iron filled her lungs before her eyes even opened.
Chelsea blinked.
Then winced.
Stone ceiling. Damp walls. A flickering light far above that wasn’t the moon.
She tried to sit up—but her arms were chained. Not silver. Not wolfsbane. Something older. Something that pulsed with magic.
Her heart began to hammer.
“Where…?”
The last thing she remembered—Kaden’s lips, the sheets still warm, the taste of peace lingering on her tongue.
Now this.
Darkness.
A hum ran through her bones. Not fear. Not yet. Something else. Something older.
She reached for the bond.
Kaden?
No answer. Just static.
She tried again, harder.
Nothing.
Her throat tightened.
She wasn’t just cut off—she was muted.
Then came the voice.
“You woke quicker than expected.”
A tall man stepped out of the shadow, cloaked in black, his skin dusted with ash, eyes ink-dark like still water.
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You must forgive the rough welcome, Golden One.”
Chelsea’s jaw clenched. “Where am I?”
“A sanctuary. For now.” He tilted his head. “And soon, a throne. If you’re willing.”
She spat at his feet. “Try again.”
He knelt, almost gentle. Almost.
“You’re powerful. The blood in your veins is sacred. You think they crowned you Luna because they loved you?” he whispered. “They crowned you to keep you close. Before you became more powerful than them all.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”
He smiled faintly.
“Call me Varyn. I once served Lysaria. And I once bled for your bloodline.”
Chelsea’s breath stilled.
He knew Lysaria.
He knew her blood.
He reached for her face,she flinched.
“Such strength,” he murmured. “But no control. Not yet. They didn’t teach you, did they? They feared you too much.”
Chelsea’s skin buzzed. Her mark—it flared beneath the cuffs.
He didn’t see it.
She closed her eyes.
And in the darkness, something inside her whispered—
Break it.
⸻
Meanwhile…
(Kaden’s POV)
“She’s gone,” Dax said again, teeth gritted. “And there’s no scent trail. Whoever took her—used magic.”
Kaden stood in the war room, the walls rattling with the weight of his fury.
“They lured us out.”
“We think it’s connected to the Lysaria betrayal,” Dax added. “Same signs. Same vanishings.”
The elders stood silent. Even the dissenters were speechless now.
“She’s your Luna,” one of them finally said, “but that blood… it’s dangerous.”
Kaden turned sharply. “Dangerous to who?”
“To them,” came a voice from the shadows.
Everyone turned.
A woman stood at the edge of the room. Wrinkled. Hooded. The Seer.
She hadn’t spoken since the coronation.
She stepped forward and laid something at Kaden’s feet—a shard of glowing crystal.
“She’s not dead. She’s not even hurt,” the Seer said softly. “But she’s waking up. And when she does…”
Her eyes met Kaden’s.
“Nothing will ever be the same.”
⸻
Back in the dark chamber…Chelsea opened her eyes.
The chains hummed, and then it cracked.
The magic that held her trembled as her eyes turned silver-gold.
Varyn’s smile faltered for the first time.
Boom.
The mountain groaned, ancient rock shivering as raw energy unfurled from her skin.
Chelsea stood slowly, the broken chains falling at her feet.
“Is that all it took?” she said, her voice low, steady. “A few rusted links and some trembling spells?”
She took a step forward, shadows curling around her ankles like loyal wolves.
“I’m not the scared girl you dragged in.”
The chains lay broken at her feet.
Smoke curled from where the magic had snapped, the air crackling with static. Chelsea’s hands trembled—not with fear, but with the strange, humming energy that now clung to her skin like second nature. The cold stone chamber suddenly felt too small to hold what was rising inside her.
Across the room, Varyn stumbled backward.
“That’s impossible,” he hissed, voice no longer calm, no longer amused. “You’re not supposed to—”
His words cut off as Chelsea stepped forward. The floor split under her bare feet with a low, crawling rumble, the old stone veins reacting to her presence like they remembered her.
Like the mountain knew her name.
Silver-gold light pulsed in her irises, flickering like fire caught in a storm.
She didn’t remember learning how to do this.
She didn’t have to.
All she knew was that the fear was gone.
All she felt was clarity.
She looked around slowly—and they saw her.
Varyn. The hooded figures flanking the walls. The guards who’d stood like statues.
Every one of them who had thought her powerless.
Every one who had tied her wrists like she was some cracked doll they could contain.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t move.
Because something in the air had shifted.
She wasn’t the scared girl they brought in.
She wasn’t the pawn they thought they’d broken.
She was the reckoning they never saw coming.
“You really thought that would hold me?” Chelsea said softly, voice laced with new steel.
No one answered.
She cocked her head, mock curiosity in her expression. “Tell me—who was the idiot that thought a few chains and a dusty spell circle were enough?”
A breath hitched. Someone shifted, barely.
She laughed quiet and cold. “Did it never occur to you to ask why I never shifted?” Her eyes met Varyn’s. “Or were you too busy playing god to notice you were building your prison on a crack?”
A pulse of magic shot from her fingertips, not even aimed, but the walls groaned. The chains behind her turned to ash.
Varyn raised a shaking hand, trying to summon something another spell, another barrier.
But the charm fizzled in his palm like wet paper.
Chelsea took one last step forward. The earth welcomed her now.
“I warned you,” she whispered.
“You should’ve been afraid of me.”