เข้าสู่ระบบThe voice inside my head did not disappear.It whispered beneath every thought.Beneath every breath.Beneath the pounding of my heart.Little moon.I pressed both hands against my ears.It didn't help.The voice wasn't coming from outside.It was inside me.Ronan crouched in front of me.“Lyra.”I stared at him.His face was the only thing that felt real.“Look at me.”I tried.The chamber around us blurred.The cultists.The broken altar.The shattered stones.All of it seemed distant.Only Ronan remained clear.“You're here,” he said.I shook my head.“Something is inside me.”His expression tightened.“I know.”“No.”I pulled away from him.“You don't understand.”“Then tell me.”“I can feel it.”My voice trembled.“Something is moving beneath my skin.”Ronan looked at my hand.The black veins had spread across my palm.They curled arou
The voice disappeared.For several seconds, nobody moved.Nobody breathed.I stood frozen beside Ronan, staring at the cracked silver bowl on the table.The words still echoed inside my head.My queen has finally come home.My skin prickled.Ronan stepped in front of me.“Everyone out.”The Moonborn elders looked at him.Elyria didn't move.“Now,” Ronan ordered.The doors opened.Guards rushed inside.“Your Majesty?”“Seal the library.”The guards immediately moved to the entrances.“No one enters.”Lucien stared at the floor.“You heard it too?”Ronan nodded.“That wasn't Malachar.”Everyone turned toward Elyria.She looked troubled.“No.”“Then who was it?” I asked.Elyria's eyes moved toward me.“I don't know.”I almost laughed.“You don't know?”Her expression remained serious.“Malachar was a king. A tyrant. A monster, perhaps. But he was still human
The darkness lasted three heartbeats.Three heartbeats in which the entire harbor disappeared.No moon.No stars.No torches.No silver glow from the Moonroad.Nothing.Then the screaming began.“Stay back!”“Protect the children!”“Get inside!”“Where are the guards?”The darkness swallowed every voice until they became one terrible roar.I felt Ronan's hand find mine.Not because of the bond.There was no bond anymore.He simply reached for me.And somehow, in the darkness, that mattered more.“Don't move,” he said.“I can't see.”“Neither can I.”A sharp cry came from the crowd.Then another.Something struck the stone near my feet.Ronan pulled me toward him.“Stay behind me.”A sudden flash of silver tore across the harbor.The Moonroad returned.But it was different.Its light no longer looked soft and beautiful.It burned.Silver flames climbed into
The sea remained silent after the wave fell.Too silent.I stood at the edge of the harbor with Ronan beside me, staring at the place where the water had risen high enough to reveal the drowned city.The Moonroad still glowed.But the figures I had seen beneath the waves were gone.No pale faces.No ghostly armies.Nothing.Only the sea.And yet I could not shake the feeling that something had seen me.Something ancient.Something that knew exactly who I was.“Lyra.”Ronan’s voice pulled me back.I looked at him.He was watching my face.“What did you see?”I hesitated.“A city.”“We saw that.”“No.” I swallowed. “I mean beneath it.”His expression hardened.“What?”“People.”Lucien, standing a few steps behind us, immediately stopped joking.“How many?”“I don’t know.”“Were they Moonborn?”“I think so.”Ronan glanced toward the water.“Were they alive?”
The song did not stop.It grew louder.Hundreds of voices carried across the harbor, rising and falling in the same ancient melody that had haunted the palace since Queen Elyria appeared through the Moonroad.I stood beside Ronan at the western window, staring at the sea.For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant for the impossible to become real.The Moonroad stretched across the water like a bridge carved from moonlight.Beyond it, the drowned city shimmered beneath the waves.And now people were walking toward us.Not spirits.Not shadows.People.Men, women, and children dressed in silver robes moved slowly across the glowing path, carrying crescent-shaped banners and lanterns that burned with pale blue fire.There were so many of them that the Moonroad seemed to disappear beneath their feet.Lucien stood beside me, his expression unusual
The Devourer rose from the abyss.Its horned head burst through the shattered floor, scraping the ceiling of the catacombs. Black stone antlers spread like the branches of a dead forest, and moon-white eyes fixed upon us with terrible intelligence.The chamber screamed.Pillars collapsed. Water exploded upward in silver geysers. The remaining fragments of the Shadow Throne dissolved into ash beneath the creature’s breath.Lucien stumbled backward, staring up at it.“That,” he said hoarsely, “is not a problem. That is an apocalypse.”Ronan pushed himself in front of me despite the blood soaking his chest.The bond pulsed violently.Pain flared through me where his wounds should have been.He felt it too.“Stop shielding me,” I whispered.“Never.”The Devourer inhaled.The air vanished from the chamber.Selene appeared beside the broken throne, her si







