MARKED FOR PRETEND - Chapter 66: Chapter 66

Darkness.
Not the kind that suffocates, but the kind that waits.
Chelsea stood barefoot on nothing not floating, not falling, just present. The same way she had when the light swallowed her.
She remembered pressing her palm to the spell.
She remembered fire.
She remembered pain.
And now?
Silence.
⸻
“Am I dead?”
Her voice didn’t echo.
There were no walls.
Just a soft shimmer in the air like mist made of memory.
A figure emerged.
Not her mother.
Not her father.
Not even Kael.
It was… her.
A version of herself, younger. Weaker. The girl who hid under staircases and apologized for being born marked.
⸻
“You burned yourself to protect them,” the girl said.
“I had to.”
“And now you’ve burned the bridge.”
“Not entirely.”
Chelsea stepped closer to the shimmer.
“A bridge doesn’t vanish when it breaks. It just becomes something harder to cross.” “Do you want to go back?” the girl asked.“Yes.” “Even if the world still fears you?” “Yes.” “Even if he’s grieving you right now and will never be the same?”
Chelsea swallowed. “Especially then.”
The girl smiled.
And for the first time… faded.
⸻
And in the quiet, the mist whispered again.
Not a question this time.
A promise.
“The bridge still stands.”
“Go back.”
⸻
Elsewhere – Duskveil, Third Day
Kaden sat alone by the ashes of the battlefield.
Her cloak wrapped around his arm. Her scent still clinging to the seams.
He didn’t cry.
He didn’t move.
He just listened to the wind.
⸻
And then… it changed.
A flicker in the bond.
A heartbeat.
⸻
His head shot up.
“Chelsea?”
A pulse.
Then another.
And somewhere behind him
A gasp.
A cough.
A voice, hoarse but real:
“You kept my cloak?”
⸻
He turned so fast he almost fell.
And there she was.
Alive.
Weakened.
But smiling.
⸻
Kaden reached her in three steps and pulled her into his arms like he might never let go.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” he whispered.
“Wasn’t planning to,” she rasped, smirking.
“You burned the sky.”
“And came back from it.”
“You’re mine.”
“I always was.”