Celeste's POV
Adrian showed up at my apartment at 9 PM with a duffel bag full of weapons and a look that said he was ready to kill anyone who got in our way.
"We're not doing this," he said, dropping the bag on my floor.
I looked up from the Council building blueprints Damien had sent. "Excuse me?"
"The rescue mission. It's off."
"Like hell it is!" I jumped to my feet. "Marcus is being tortured because of me—"
"And walking into a trap won't save him." Adrian's voice was calm. Too calm. "The Council wants you desperate and stupid. I won't let you give them what they want."
"You don't get to decide—"
The door slammed open.
A woman walked in like she owned the place. Tall, silver hair, wearing robes that shimmered with Council magic. Her eyes swept over my apartment with cold disdain before landing on me.
"Celeste Thorne," she said. Not a question. A judgment.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Magistrate Vera Cross. I speak for the Arcane Council." She pulled out a scroll that glowed with official seals. "I'm here to deliver an ultimatum."
Adrian moved between us instantly, his hand on a concealed weapon. "She's not going anywhere with you."
Vera's eyes flicked to him. "Adrian Blackwell. The traitor hunter. How disappointing your father must be."
"My father can rot."
"He will. Along with you, if you continue protecting this witch." Vera turned back to me. "But that's not why I'm here. The Council has made a decision regarding your... situation."
She unrolled the scroll.
My apartment door opened again. Damien walked in, followed by Theo. Both of them froze when they saw Vera.
"Damien Ashcroft," Vera said pleasantly. "Your family will be thrilled to know you're consorting with the woman who killed your father's political career."
Damien's face went stone cold. "Read your ultimatum and get out."
"With pleasure." Vera held up the scroll. "By order of the Arcane Council, Celeste Thorne is hereby given six months—"
"Twenty-nine days," I interrupted. "You already changed the timeline."
Her smile was sharp. "The Council has reconsidered. Given the... complications... with your situation, we're extending your deadline back to the original six months."
My heart stopped. "What?"
"However." Her voice turned ice-cold. "There are new conditions. You must complete the Trials of Truth within thirty days. You must choose your soulmate from the three candidates present here tonight. And you must complete the magic transfer before the six-month deadline, or—"
"Or what?" Theo demanded.
Vera's eyes glittered with malice. "Or the Council will forcibly extract Celeste's magic ourselves."
The room went silent.
"That's murder," Damien said quietly. "Forced extraction is a death sentence."
"It's regulation." Vera smiled. "Magic as powerful as the Thorne legacy cannot be allowed to die unclaimed. If Celeste fails to transfer it properly, the Council is authorized to harvest it for the greater good."
"The greater good?" I couldn't breathe. "You mean the highest bidder."
"The auction is a separate matter—"
"The auction is you planning to kill me and sell my power like I'm livestock!" My magic flared, silver light crackling around my fingers. "I'm a person, not a commodity!"
Vera didn't even flinch. "You're a vessel for power beyond your control. The curse will kill you anyway. We're simply ensuring that power goes to someone who can use it responsibly."
"You mean someone who'll pay seventy-five million dollars for it."
"Eighty million, actually. The bid went up an hour ago." She tilted her head. "You should be flattered. Your magic is quite valuable."
Adrian's hand moved toward his weapon. Damien's purple magic started to glow. Theo stepped closer to me, his presence somehow calming even though he had no power at all.
"There's more," Vera continued, ignoring the three men ready to kill her. "The forced extraction process is... imprecise. There's a ninety-eight percent chance it will result in a magical explosion equivalent to a small nuclear blast. Boston and surrounding areas would be completely destroyed."
My legs gave out. Theo caught me before I hit the floor.
"Half the city," I whispered. "You'd kill half the city just to take my magic?"
"We'd prefer you complete the transfer voluntarily. Hence the ultimatum." Vera rolled up the scroll. "Six months to choose. Thirty days to complete the trials. Fail either deadline, and we extract. Simple."
"And Marcus?" My voice shook. "What happens to him?"
"Your mentor will be released after you complete the first trial. As a show of good faith."
"Good faith?" I wanted to laugh. To scream. "You tortured him!"
"We questioned him. There's a difference." Vera walked toward the door, then paused. "Oh, and Celeste? The Council knows about Vivienne's binding spell. We're allowing it to stand."
Damien's magic exploded. "You're WHAT?"
"The binding adds an interesting element to the trials. It ensures Celeste chooses carefully." Vera's smile was poison. "After all, if she picks wrong, she doesn't just die. She murders two innocent men. That should motivate her to choose wisely."
"This is insane!" Theo shouted. "You can't just—"
"We already have." Vera opened the door. "The trials begin in forty-eight hours. Location will be sent tomorrow. All three candidates must attend. Failure to appear means automatic disqualification and immediate extraction."
She looked at me one last time.
"Choose well, Miss Thorne. The fate of Boston rests on your heart." She smiled. "No pressure."
She left.
The door clicked shut.
Silence.
I stared at the floor, my mind racing. Six months. Thirty days for trials. Choose one, kill two. Fail, and the Council murders me and destroys the city.
"This can't be legal," Theo said desperately. "There have to be laws—"
"The Council IS the law," Damien cut him off. His face was pale. "They can do whatever they want. And nobody will stop them."
"I will." Adrian's voice was deadly quiet.
We all turned to look at him.
"If they try to take you," he said, looking directly at me, "I'll burn the Council headquarters to the ground. With them inside."
"That's suicide," Damien said.
"I don't care."
"You should. Because if you die, the binding kills Celeste too." Damien ran his hands through his hair. "We're trapped. All of us. The Council knows it. Vivienne knows it. And they're both going to use it to destroy us."
My phone buzzed.
I almost didn't look. But I had to.
A text from Isabella, my cousin at the Council:
I'm sorry. I couldn't stop them. But there's something you need to know about the trials. They're not just testing your heart. They're designed to break you. Each trial gets worse. And the final one... Celeste, nobody's survived the final trial in three hundred years. Nobody.
My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone.
Another text came through:
The Council is betting you'll fail. That's why they extended the deadline back to six months—more time for the auction bids to increase. They WANT you to die in the trials so they can take your magic.
I showed the messages to the others.
"Nobody's survived in three hundred years?" Theo's voice cracked. "That's not a trial, that's an execution!"
"It's worse than that." Damien was reading something on his own phone, his face getting paler by the second. "I just got intel from my sources. The final trial isn't just about devotion. It's about sacrifice. Real sacrifice."
"What kind?" I asked.
He looked up at me with horror in his eyes. "The kind where the chosen soulmate has to die to break the curse."
The room spun.
"What?" The word barely made it past my lips.
"The original curse required a sacrifice. A life for a life. That's what your ancestor discovered three hundred years ago—to break the curse permanently, the soulmate has to willingly die in the transfer."
"No." Theo shook his head. "No, that's not—that can't be—"
"It's in the Council archives. I'm looking at it right now." Damien's hands were shaking. "Your mother knew. That's why she couldn't complete the transfer. She couldn't ask someone she loved to die for her."
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
The curse could be broken. But only if my soulmate sacrificed their life for mine.
"So let me get this straight," Adrian said, his voice eerily calm. "Celeste chooses one of us. That person dies in the transfer. The other two die from Vivienne's binding. And Celeste lives, alone, with the guilt of killing all three of us."
Nobody answered.
Because he was right.
"Unless," Damien said slowly, "we find a way to break Vivienne's binding before the final trial."
"How?" I demanded. "You said killing her might trigger it immediately!"
"I know. But there might be another way." He was typing frantically on his phone. "Blood magic can be countered with blood magic. If we can find the original ritual components, we might be able to reverse it."
"In thirty days?" Theo sounded hopeless. "While also surviving three other trials designed to kill us?"
"You have a better plan?"
He didn't.
My phone buzzed again. Another message from Isabella:
One more thing. The person who raised the auction bid to 80 million? It's someone you know. Someone close to you. Be careful who you trust.
I stared at the message, ice flooding my veins.
Someone close to me was betting eighty million dollars that I'd fail. That I'd die. That the Council would harvest my magic and sell it to the highest bidder.
"Who do you trust?" I asked quietly. "Who in my life has eighty million dollars and wants me dead?"
The three men exchanged looks.
"Vivienne doesn't have that kind of money," Damien said. "She's powerful, but not wealthy."
"My father's estate is worth about that much," Adrian added. "But he'd never—"
He stopped.
We all looked at him.
"Your father," I said slowly. "The Huntmaster. He wants me dead anyway."
"But he doesn't want anyone to HAVE your magic. He'd rather see it destroyed than in someone else's hands." Adrian's face went white. "Unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Unless he's not bidding to buy your magic. He's bidding to make sure whoever wins is someone he can kill afterward." Adrian stood up, his whole body tense. "If the Council extracts your magic and sells it, the buyer becomes the next target. My father bids high enough to scare off other buyers, wins the auction, receives your magic, and then—"
"And then he has someone kill the recipient and destroy the magic permanently," Damien finished. "Eliminating the Thorne power forever."
I was going to be sick.
"So either I choose a soulmate who dies in the transfer, or I fail and my magic goes to your father who'll use it to kill more supernatural beings," I said to Adrian. "Those are my options?"
"No." Adrian's voice was steel. "There's a third option."
"What?"
He looked at me with eyes full of something that looked like love and sounded like goodbye.
"We don't let you make the choice. We kill all three of us before the trials begin. Vivienne's binding triggers early, but there's no transfer because you have no candidates left. The Council can't extract your magic because you're already dead from the binding. My father doesn't get what he wants. Nobody does."
"That's insane!" Theo shouted.
"It's the only way to protect her."
"By killing her? That's not protection, that's murder!"
"It's mercy." Adrian's face was calm. "She dies either way. At least this way, the magic dies with her. Boston is safe. The supernatural world doesn't fall into chaos. And nobody profits from her death."
I stared at him, my heart breaking into pieces.
He was serious. He was actually suggesting they all die just to spite the Council and his father.
"No," I said firmly. "Absolutely not."
"Celeste—"
"I said no!" My magic flared, silver light filling the apartment. "I am not letting you sacrifice yourselves for some twisted idea of mercy! We're going to survive this. All of us."
"How?" Damien demanded. "Tell me how all four of us survive when every possible outcome ends in death!"
I didn't have an answer.
My phone lit up one more time.
A video call. Unknown number.
I answered it.
Marcus appeared on screen. He looked worse than before—more blood, more bruises, barely conscious.
But he was smiling.
"Celeste," he whispered. "Don't come for me. Don't do the trials. Just run. Take these three idiots and run as far as you can."
"Marcus—"
"I'm an old man. I've lived my life. But you—you deserve better than this. Better than a curse that kills everyone you love. So please. Run."
The camera shifted.
Vivienne's face filled the screen, her smile vicious.
"He's very sweet, isn't he? Offering to die so you can escape." She laughed. "But here's the thing, cousin. There is no escape. I made sure of that."
She held up a vial of silver liquid. My blood. From the shop.
"I've been collecting this for three years. Every time you bled, every time you used magic—I saved it. And tonight, I completed a very special ritual."
She poured my blood into a bowl carved with symbols.
"I've linked your life force to the Council headquarters. If you run, if you try to leave the city, if you miss the trials—the building explodes. Everyone inside dies. Including Marcus. Including three hundred Council members and staff. Including innocent people who just work there."
My heart stopped.
"So go ahead," Vivienne whispered. "Run. Save yourself. And watch three hundred people die because of you."
The video ended.
I dropped the phone.
"She's bluffing," Damien said immediately. "That kind of ritual would require—"
"My blood. Which she has." I looked at all three of them. "She's not bluffing. She never bluffs."
Silence.
"So that's it then," Theo said quietly. "You do the trials, you die. You run, you kill three hundred people. You refuse to choose, the Council extracts your magic and destroys Boston."
"Yes," I whispered.
Adrian walked to the window, staring out at the city. "There has to be a way out. There's always a way out."
"Not this time."
He turned to face me. "Then we make one."
"How?"
"I don't know yet. But I'm not watching you die. I'm not watching any of you die." His gray eyes were fierce. "So we're going to survive these trials. We're going to break Vivienne's binding. We're going to stop my father and the Council. And we're going to find a way to end this curse without anyone dying."
"That's impossible," Damien said.
"So was a hunter falling in love with a witch. So was three men being bound by fate to save one woman. So was all of this." Adrian looked at each of us in turn. "We've been dealing with impossible since the beginning. What's one more?"
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to hope.
But hope felt dangerous when surrounded by so much death.
My phone buzzed with a final message. Official Council seal:
Trial One begins in 47 hours. Ancient Ritual Grounds, Appalachian Wilderness. Transportation will be provided. Bring nothing except your candidates. The Trial of Sacrifice awaits.
Below that, a single line that made my blood run cold:
Only the worthy survive. Only the true find freedom. Only the broken become whole.
I showed it to the others.
"Forty-seven hours," Theo breathed.
"To prepare for a trial designed to kill us," Damien added.
Adrian just smiled. A dangerous smile that reminded me he was a hunter, trained to face impossible odds and survive.
"Then we'd better get started."
He opened his duffel bag. Inside were weapons, spell components, and something that made my heart skip—
A journal. Old. Blood-stained. With the name "Elara Thorne" written on the cover.
My ancestor. The one who started this curse.
"Where did you get that?" I whispered.
"From my family's archives. We keep records of every supernatural being we've ever hunted." Adrian handed it to me. "Your ancestor wrote this three hundred years ago. The last entry was made the night she died."
My hands shook as I opened it.
The final page had only three sentences, written in silver ink that looked like blood:
I found the answer. True love across lifetimes. He will come back for me. He always does.
Below that, two names carved into the paper:
Elara & Theo
I looked up at Theo Sterling.
The doctor with no memory of his childhood. The man who dreamed of a life he never lived. The healer who remembered what was lost.
His face had gone white.
"That's not possible," he whispered.
But we both knew it was.
Because three hundred years ago, Elara Thorne had found her soulmate.
And his name was Theo.