เข้าสู่ระบบCHAPTER 8
The moment Sable’s fingers touched the bowl, the mark on her wrist flared so bright the room seemed to tilt.Candles bent inward, their flames drawing toward her like they’d been called.Her skin went hot—too hot—then cold in the next breath, as if something inside her couldn’t decide whether to burn her alive or keep her preserved.The second heartbeat answered.Thump.Not fear. Not panic.Pleased.Maeven’s eyes locked on Sable’s wrist, and the bone-seer’s face changed—not smiling now, not amused. Focused. Hungry in a different way.“Good,” Maeven murmured. “It recognizes the offering.”Sable’s throat closed. “I’m not offering myself.”Maeven’s gaze lifted to her face. “Not on purpose,” she said. “But the bond doesn’t need permission. It needs access.”Outside the room, the scraping started again—slow, patient nails dragging along wood, like whoever was out there hCHAPTER 27 They moved the Hollowpack fast—faster than Sable thought possible for wolves who lived underground like ghosts.Rowan barked orders in a language that sounded like stone scraping stone. Wolves melted into shadow. Torches were snuffed. The tunnel became a living maze, rearranging around them as if Hollow tunnels could choose their own shape.Sable stumbled once, ribs aching, and Caelan caught her without breaking stride. His hand stayed on her wrist—always on her wrist—like he was terrified the bond would fray if he let go.Eamon walked beside Maeven now, close enough that their shoulders almost brushed. He didn’t touch her yet.Like touching would make it real and he wasn’t sure he could hold real without shattering.Maeven didn’t look at him either. She held herself like a blade kept sheathed too long.They reached a wider chamber—a hollowed-out stone room with old markings carved into the walls. Hollow
CHAPTER 26 Maeven didn’t arrive.She stopped pretending.They made it to the Hollow chamber with Rowan’s pack circling like blades, and every eye in the room tracked Sable’s wrist, Caelan’s posture, and Eamon’s storm-blue stare.Rowan’s voice was sharp. “No outside rites in Hollow sanctuary.”Maeven stepped forward before anyone else could speak.“I’m not outside,” she said calmly.Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Nightfell.”Maeven’s gaze didn’t flinch. “I was hidden in it.”Sable’s breath caught.Caelan’s hand tightened on her wrist.Eamon’s stare sharpened like a storm gathering.Maeven lifted her pouch and turned it upside down.Bones fell into her palm.The chamber went still so fast it felt like the air snapped.A Hollow wolf whispered, “Bone…”Rowan’s jaw tightened. “Say it.”Maeven looked at Sable.Then at Caela
CHAPTER 25 The tunnel wasn’t shaped like a tunnel.It was shaped like a decision.Darkness pressed on Sable’s skin, cold and heavy, and the floor under her feet felt wrong—tilted, shifting, as if the passage wasn’t carved so much as written.Maeven moved ahead of them with a small torch that barely held its flame. The light didn’t reach far. It was swallowed by the black like the darkness was hungry.Caelan stayed close to Sable’s shoulder, his fingers never leaving her wrist. Every so often his breath warmed the side of her neck, and she could feel his body trying to remember heat.Behind them, Eamon followed with the steadiness of a man who’d decided he would never be caged again. He didn’t look back. He didn’t hesitate. The pull had him, and the pull had teeth.“How far?” Sable rasped, ribs aching with every step.Maeven didn’t slow. “Far enough that Lyra can’t call you back with a name,” she snapped. “
CHAPTER 24 Maeven didn’t believe in prophecy the way wolves did.Wolves treated prophecy like a warning bell—something outside of them, something fate rang when it wanted attention.Maeven had never heard bells.She’d heard bones.And bones didn’t ring.Bones pointed.She moved ahead of Sable and Caelan in the tunnel, torch raised, posture sharp, breath controlled. She kept her face hard because softness invited questions, and questions invited names, and names invited ruin.Behind her, Sable’s breathing stuttered like pain trying to climb into panic. Caelan stayed close enough that the air between them tightened into that invisible wire—bond tension, bond hunger, bond law.Eamon Varr followed them like a man pulled by a chain he could not see.Maeven could.Not the chain itself. The way the world leaned.The passage narrowed, then widened into a pocket chamber—an old ho
CHAPTER 23 The seam didn’t split like stone breaking.It split like stone remembering it was a door.A thin black line opened down the center of the basin, and the runes around the room rearranged themselves again—less crown now, more key. The air changed, sucking cold from the floor and pushing it upward in a spiral that made torchlight gutter.Lyra lunged toward the basin, face sharp with panic.“NO,” she snapped, and the name carried power—old pack-law, binding-law.But the runes didn’t answer her.They answered Sable.Sable’s wrist burned under the circlet. The vow she’d spoken—her will, her choice—sat inside the room like a fresh seal. She felt it now as pressure behind her ribs, heavy and alive.Accepted.The echo inside her chest thumped once, resentful.Caelan’s fingers tightened around her hand. His breath fogged at her temple. “Don’t look away,” he murmured, voice rough
CHAPTER 22 The word Accepted didn’t echo.It settled.Like ash falling onto a wound.The Binding Room’s runes rearranged themselves in pale fire, lines shifting into a new geometry that looked less like restraint and more like a crown laid flat on stone.Sable’s mark flared under the circlet, then steadied.The second heartbeat in her chest thudded—hard, angry—but it couldn’t seize her breath the way it had moments ago.Because the vow had changed the rules.Caelan’s shoulders dropped like he’d been holding his own soul in place by force alone. His jaw clenched, and when he exhaled, his breath fogged the air.Breath.Not just cold.Life trying to happen.Maeven’s voice came tight from the doorway. “Good,” she whispered. “Now don’t waste it.”Lyra stared at Sable like she’d just watched a human girl steal a crown from a throne with bare hands. “You don’t understand wh







