NOVEL NEXT Chapter 49: Predator’s Mark
Recap of the Previous Chapter
The Herald of the storm descended, wearing Jemil's face and wielding his forgotten name like a blade. Every strike mirrored his own, every word threatened to unravel his bonds. His wives fought desperately—Mira with her waters, Lura with fang and claw, Yura with cunning wit, and Alvara with unwavering steel. Yet it was their voices, their defiance, that steadied Jemil when despair almost claimed him.
Together, they struck a blow that shattered the Herald's armor and drew its first blood. But instead of falling, the reflection only laughed, declaring that the real trial had just begun. The storm bent closer, swallowing them whole.
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Scene 1 – Into the Storm Domain
The world collapsed into thunder.
One instant, Jemil stood on the shattered stones of the Tower floor, lightning cracking overhead. The next, his footing dissolved. The ground fell away, and he and his wives were hurled into a maelstrom of sky and shadow.
Winds screamed in every direction. Bolts of lightning twisted like serpents, carving jagged paths through endless clouds. There was no horizon—only storm.
Jemil hit the ground hard, though what he landed on didn't feel like earth. It was shifting, humming, alive with electricity. When he looked down, he saw veins of lightning coursing beneath a translucent surface, like standing atop the skin of a god.
The Herald stood across from them, perfectly steady. The storm coiled at its back like a living cloak, every strike of lightning bending toward it as though drawn to a master.
"Welcome," it said, voice deep and merciless, "to the hunt."
Jemil pushed himself up, his wives forming quickly around him. Mira steadied him with a hand at his shoulder. Alvara stepped forward, blade already drawn. Yura flicked blood from her lip, smirking even here. Lura growled, teeth bared, fur bristling against the charged air.
The Herald spread its arms. "This is my domain. Here, you will learn what it means to be prey."
And with a snap of its fingers, the storm moved.
Bolts rained down not randomly, but with intent. Each one aimed at a precise target—forcing the wives apart, driving them into separate arcs of the battlefield. Jemil felt his heart lurch as the formation broke.
The Herald didn't rush to strike. It walked. Slowly. Patiently. Like a predator savoring the chase.
Its eyes—Jemil's own eyes—never left him.
Scene 2 – Predator's Dance
The battlefield stretched into infinity, yet every bolt of lightning struck with surgical precision. This wasn't chaos—it was orchestration.
"Scatter, and you die," the Herald said, stalking forward through the storm. His voice didn't need to shout; the thunder bent around his words, carrying them like commands etched into the world itself.
Jemil tried to pull his wives back together, summoning a circle of flame to clear space, but each time he reached for one of them, lightning carved the ground, forcing them farther apart.
Mira was the first to be cornered. A wave of lightning arced into the shape of a serpent, hissing and snapping as it coiled around her water shields. She countered with torrents that hissed to steam, her face lit with stubborn defiance, but Jemil could see the strain in her arms.
Lura lunged against her own snare—storm-wolves with eyes like burning coals. She tore into them with claw and fang, but for every one she shredded, two more took its place, biting deep into her fur, their bodies made of living current.
Yura fared better, darting in and out of shadows, laughing between ragged breaths as she evaded the storm's fangs. "What's the matter, copycat? Can't land a hit on me?" she taunted, but even her sly smirk trembled. The lightning chased her relentlessly, learning her rhythms, predicting her feints.
And Alvara—
Jemil's gaze snapped to her. The storm didn't try to overwhelm her. No, the Herald himself approached her directly, blade of living lightning in hand.
Alvara raised her sword without hesitation. Steel met storm, sparks screaming where they clashed. She held her ground, every movement sharp, trained, absolute. But the Herald fought like Jemil—her master, her summoner, her bond. Every thrust she parried felt like a betrayal, every mirrored stance cut into her more deeply than the blade itself.
Jemil surged forward to join her, but the ground itself split open, lightning bars rising like a cage to keep him back.
He slammed his fist against it, sparks lashing across his skin. "Damn it—!"
The Herald's laugh rumbled across the battlefield. "Do you see, Jemil? They are not companions. They are prey. You bind them, drag them into hunts they cannot win. And when the predator comes… they bleed first."
Jemil's chest tightened, fury burning against the helplessness clawing at him. He could feel the Tower pressing in, trying to make him believe those words.
And then—
The storm shifted.
Lightning carved downward, not at Alvara this time, but at a figure emerging from the storm itself. A woman.
Her arrival was not thunderous, but sharp. Controlled. Every step struck the ground like a blade finding its sheath. Her hair, dark and streaked with silver light, whipped in the charged winds. A long blade rested at her hip, untouched yet already dangerous.
Her eyes locked on Jemil. Cold. Burning. Familiar in a way that made his pulse stumble.
The Herald smiled.
"At last. The sword you tried to forget."
The wives froze. Even Alvara faltered, her blade lowering an inch.
Jemil whispered, breath caught in his throat.
"…You."
The tsundere swordmaster wife had entered the storm.
Scene 3 – The Swordmaster's Entrance
The storm bent around her.
Not parted like it did for the Herald, but resisted—lightning lashing in fury, only to be cut down before it could touch her. Each strike ended in silence, sliced clean in half by a blade that hadn't even left its sheath.
Her presence wasn't like Mira's flowing waters, or Yura's sly shadows, or even Alvara's iron resolve. It was sharper. Heavier. Every step she took pressed on the air like the edge of a drawn sword against the throat.
"Another wife?" Yura muttered, her voice trembling between sarcasm and disbelief. "Seriously, Jemil, how many—"
The woman's eyes snapped toward her, and Yura fell silent. Not out of fear—out of instinct. Those eyes were the eyes of a killer.
She stopped only a few paces from Jemil, the storm shrieking around her, and for the first time since entering the Tower, Jemil didn't know whether to step closer or draw back.
Her lips parted, her voice calm, but edged with something tightly coiled.
"You really don't remember me."
Jemil's heart pounded. There was weight in her words, like a sword held against old scars.
"I… I don't."
The faintest twitch flickered across her face—anger? pain?—before her mask slammed back into place.
"Typical."
She unsheathed her blade. The sound was like thunder in miniature, a storm contained in steel. Sparks crawled across the edge as if eager to taste blood.
"Then I'll remind you," she said, pointing the blade at his chest, "the only way you ever let me—through combat."
Alvara's grip tightened on her own sword. "Who are you?"
The woman's eyes didn't shift from Jemil. They didn't need to.
"His."
The word landed heavier than any thunderclap.
Jemil's wives stiffened. Mira's breath caught. Lura growled low, uncertain whether to bare fangs at her or the Herald. Even Yura—ever quick with a barb—was silent, watching Jemil like the answer might decide all their fates.
The Herald chuckled, pleased. "And so the predator enters the field. Not to fight me. To fight you."
The storm swelled, feeding on tension. The battlefield wasn't just lightning and shadow anymore—it was a stage for betrayal, obsession, and truths no one wanted to face.
Jemil swallowed hard, his chest burning with emotions he couldn't name.
"…Why do you look at me like that?"
Her grip on the blade tightened, knuckles white.
"Because you promised me something, and then you abandoned me."
Lightning screamed across the sky, punctuating her words like a vow.
She raised her sword. The duel had already begun.
Scene 4 – Words Sharper than Blades
The storm leaned in closer, as if eager to hear her accusation.
Jemil opened his mouth, but no words came. His mind clawed at the empty places where memories should be, searching for the promise she spoke of. Nothing. Only silence.
The Herald stepped between them like a shadow given flesh, its blade humming with stormlight.
"Do you hear it, Jemil? The bitterness in her voice? That is not loyalty. That is betrayal you planted yourself."
"Shut your mouth!" Lura snarled, thrashing against the storm-wolves still snapping at her heels. Sparks tore her fur, blood sizzling against the ground, but she fought to stay standing. "She's one of us—your lies won't—"
"She is mine," the Herald thundered, voice shaking the storm itself. "Forged from your own hunger, from your desire to bind, to own. Do you think these wives follow you out of love? No. They are caged beasts, desperate for scraps of affection, fighting each other for the right to be noticed."
Yura flinched, her smirk faltering for the first time. Mira bit her lip so hard blood welled. Alvara's grip on her sword quivered—just slightly, but Jemil saw it.
And the swordmaster—
Her blade lowered by a fraction, her eyes narrowing at Jemil. "Is it true?" she asked, voice low, trembling with something she couldn't contain. "Did you summon me only to chain me?"
Jemil's chest ached. "I don't remember summoning you—"
"That's worse," she snapped, anger cracking through her calm. "You don't remember the vow you made? The one I lived by? The one I killed for?"
The Herald's laughter rolled like thunder. "There it is. The truth beneath her obsession. She doesn't love you, Jemil. She is addicted to you. And addictions rot everything they touch."
The words dug like claws. Jemil could see his wives' eyes—hurt, uncertain, afraid. The Herald wasn't just attacking with lightning. It was cutting them with truths sharpened into blades.
But then—
Alvara stepped forward, standing between Jemil and the stormmaster's accusation, steel blazing in her hands. "No," she said, firm, her voice the anchor they needed. "Even if his memory falters, even if the Tower tries to twist us, I know this much—Jemil does not abandon his own. And he never will."
Her conviction cut through the storm for a breath, clearing the air.
The swordmaster's eyes flickered—doubt, pain, something dangerously close to hope.
The Herald snarled, storm flaring. "Then prove it. With steel."
The ground split, forcing Jemil and the swordmaster onto a lone platform suspended in stormlight. The wives were pushed back, lightning cages snapping into place.
It was just him, her, and the storm.
And the only way forward was through the blade.
The lightning platform thrummed beneath Jemil's boots, alive, unstable, as if it would vanish the moment he faltered. The Herald's storm raged around them, a cage of thunder sealing him and the swordmaster together.
Her blade gleamed, unsheathed now, its edge sparking with stormlight. She pointed it straight at his heart—not trembling, not uncertain. Cold. Certain.
"Remember or not," she said, her voice taut with pain buried beneath steel, "I won't forgive you until you prove yourself with that blade."
The storm howled, echoing her vow.
Jemil's wives hammered against the lightning cages, shouting his name, but the Herald's laughter drowned them out. It raised its jagged crown of lightning high, and bolts cascaded into Jemil, searing across his skin.
Pain erupted—not flesh-deep, but soul-deep. Symbols burned onto his chest, glowing with predatory intent.
The Herald's voice boomed:
"I mark you, Jemil. You will never escape what you are. Predator, prey—it matters not. This hunt will end with blood."
Jemil collapsed to one knee, breath torn from him, chest searing with the mark's glow. His wives screamed his name, but the storm swallowed their voices.
When he looked up, it was only her. The swordmaster. Blade ready. Eyes burning with obsession and betrayal both.
The storm crowned the moment with silence—then snapped shut like jaws around them.
The duel was inevitable.
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Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 50: Shackles of the Sword
The storm has caged Jemil and the swordmaster in its heart, forcing them into a duel neither can escape. Her blade carries obsession sharpened into steel, her emotions locked behind a wall of betrayal and repression. Jemil must face not only her sword, but the truth she believes he abandoned.
But the Herald's mark burns hotter with each strike, pulling at Jemil's soul, trying to twist him into the very predator the Tower demands he become.
⚔️ Sword against storm, love against obsession—the clash that will decide whether the bond with his swordmaster wife is reclaimed… or broken forever.
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Call to Action
⚡ The storm has marked Jemil, binding him to a trial he cannot run from.
🔥 A wife of steel and silence stands before him, her blade carrying years of pain and obsession.
👉 Will Jemil's love break her chains—or will her sword sever his bonds?
Don't miss Chapter 50: Shackles of the Sword!