MARKED FOR PRETEND - Chapter 54: Chapter 54

It started with a whisper, then came the footsteps.
By the third day, the pack grounds no longer smelled like home. They smelled like fire. Steel. Salt.
The world had heard her name.
Now it came to test it.
⸻
Every hour, someone new arrived.
A delegation from the Ashbone Wolves, cloaked in soot-stained black.
The Redridge Mages, who refused to bow to anyone but prophecy.
A blood-clan from the Southern isles, who brought a bound creature in chains a living offering, or a threat.
And whispers of more to come.
The Wyrm-Binders.
The Children of Hollow Flame.
The remnants of the once-banished Ironmoon faction.
Each group had questions. And expectations.
And not all of them believed Chelsea should live.
⸻
Inside the high chamber, Kaden stood by the map table, fists clenched. Bevy was barely recovering. And Chelsea she hadn’t slept in two nights.
“They’re forming camps beyond the northern edge,” one scout reported. “Not just watching. Waiting.”
“For what?” Bevy rasped.
“For her,” the scout said, eyes flicking to Chelsea. “To speak. Or fall.”
⸻
Chelsea stepped outside before anyone stopped her.
The wind bit harder now. The land itself felt different. As if Kaelvarin had cracked something deeper — not just a veil, but a silence.
Her mark pulsed again.
And Nyra’s voice was clear.
You think this is about sides. It’s not. It’s about survival. Only those who understand power will remain. The rest will be buried beneath it.
Chelsea knelt beside the riverbank, water dark with reflected storm clouds.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she whispered.
And yet the world waits on your command.
Behind her, the crunch of leaves.
She turned.
It wasn’t Kaden.
It was a stranger in pale red robes.
Eyes covered. Mouth stitched with black thread.
He knelt wordlessly… and pressed his forehead to the earth at her feet.
⸻
“Who are you?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer.
But another voice did from the trees.
A woman with silver bone rings braided into her hair.
“He cannot speak. He is a Bound Voice. We are the Flamemarked.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
Chelsea stood slowly, hand near her side where magic coiled like a snake.
“To kill me?”
“To worship you.”
Chelsea froze.
“You think I’m a goddess?”
“Not a goddess,” the woman said. “A gate.”
She smiled — and it chilled Chelsea more than any threat ever had.
“Through you, power flows. Through you, the realms might bleed. All we ask… is that you let it.”
⸻
Before Chelsea could reply, Kaden was behind her — eyes golden, growl low.
“Step back.”
“We’re not enemies,” the woman said sweetly. “Not yet.”
She gestured to the others behind her — more red-robed figures emerging from the trees.
Dozens.
Maybe more.
“The Keepers want you silenced. The packs want you controlled. We… want to follow. Let the old magic rise. Let the storms burn what was weak.”
“I’m not a banner,” Chelsea said. “I’m not your weapon.”
“You’ll have to choose,” the woman said. “Because others are choosing already.”
⸻
As they disappeared back into the mist, Chelsea turned to Kaden.
“How do I fight people who kneel to me like I’m their salvation?”
Kaden’s face was grim.
“You don’t. You prepare for the ones who don’t kneel at all.”
⸻
And as thunder rumbled far in the east, Chelsea felt it in her bones.
The war had already begun.