Page 59 of Shadowkissed

I close my eyes, breathing deep.

We were never meant to rule. We were meant toguard.I remember the last time I saw them.

The council had gathered—not the supernatural council, butours. The Keepers. What was left of them, anyway.

They stood in judgment, cloaked in white and gold, their eyes sharp as glass. And I stood bloody. Covered in ash. My pack behind me, already grieving. Because I’d made a choice. One life over the many.

My brother. My little brother.

A wolf barely grown into his skin, marked by shadow magic and doomed from the second he touched it. They told me I had to end it. That he was a threat to the balance. That it wasmy dutyas his blood and as a Guardian.

But I didn’t. I let him run. I took the fall. And that was it.

Exile.

Erased from the lineage. My name cut out of the ancestral text. Cloak burned. Pendant cracked. But I’d do it again. Because protecting one person—choosingthem—sometimes matters more than an oath written in blood.

I sit back on the floor, heart pounding. Because I’m starting to think I made that same choice again. But this time I don’t even remember who I chose.

I flip to the back of the journal.

There’s a section I’ve never read. Not closely.

Drawings. Maps. Guardian prophecies. Theories about the Veil and what lies beyond it.

But one passage catches my eye.

"The bond between a Guardian and a fae, especially a dark fae of the cursed line is forbidden. Not because it weakens him—but because it unlocks the oldest part of what he is. The primal force behind the balance. The creature made not just to guard the gates… but to close them forever."

My blood runs cold.

Afae of the cursed line? That phrase lights something in me. I see violet. Hair like shadow and stars. Runes curling over skin. A mouth that tasted like goodbye.

Gods.

Was shefae?Wasshewhat I lost?

I scramble to my feet, breathing hard. I don't know her name. But my soulremembers. And if she’s tied to this prophecy then I need to find her.

Because she didn’t just unlock something in me.

She’s thekey.

29

LIORA

Seraphiel’s court doesn’t have walls.

Not in the way mortals understand them.

There are no bricks. No doors. Just endless stretches of black marble veined with glowing red. The ceiling—if you can call it that—shifts like smoke trapped under glass. The air hums with the kind of power that makes your bones feel hollow, like it’s waiting to rewrite you from the inside out.

And I amso tiredof being rewritten.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Time stretches and snaps like thread soaked in fire. Sometimes the sky bleeds. Sometimes the shadows whisper. Sometimes I forget what day it is or if I’ve eaten. If I’veslept.

But I remember him.

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