MARKED FOR PRETEND - Chapter 63: Chapter 63

The war camp was quiet.
Too quiet.
Not with fear , but with the kind of stillness that comes when everyone already knows what dawn will bring.
Chelsea stood on the battlement, her cloak pulled tight. The wind tasted like ash and frost.
“It’s the last quiet night,” she whispered.
“Then let’s not waste it.”
Kaden stepped behind her warmth and muscle and danger wrapped in one. She didn’t flinch. She leaned back.
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her like she might vanish again.
“You know what scares me the most?” she asked.
“Losing?”
“No. Surviving.”
She looked up at him.
“What happens if we win and the world doesn’t change? If I become just another cursed name they fear?”
“Then they’ll fear you beside me.”
He touched her cheek, voice soft.
“And if you fall… I fall with you.
She turned in his arms, burying her face against his chest.
“Don’t say things like that.”
“I mean them.”
“That’s the problem.”
⸻
They didn’t sleep that night. Not really.
They kissed like time owed them something.
They touched like it might be the last time, no promises, no poetry.
Just quiet desperation and love wrapped in bone-deep hunger.
⸻
Before dawn, he whispered one last thing:
“You’re not just mine.”
“You’re ours.”
“To protect. To follow. To believe in.”
⸻
She left his bed wrapped in firelight.
And as the horns began to sound in soft, then louder Chelsea Krippa stepped into her war cloak.
Not as a prophecy.
Not as prey.
But as the girl who would decide whether the world still needed bridges… or fire.