공유

Chapter 118

작가: Kennedy M
last update 최신 업데이트: 2025-12-31 19:23:33

For three days, it didn’t rain.

Theras had known storms for centuries—some made of lightning, others of blood—but this stillness was worse. The mountains were quiet. The forests whispered, but not in warning. Just the sound of leaves brushing each other, like a breath held too long.

Aelin sat by the river at dawn, barefoot, knees drawn up to her chest.

The water ran clear again. She could see her reflection: the white hair, the eyes that no longer glowed silver or gold but something strange in between—moonlight caught in amber. The scar where the mark once burned was gone, replaced by a faint shimmer that pulsed when she breathed.

The world was healing.

She wasn’t sure she was.

Behind her, footsteps approached—soft, deliberate.

“I thought you’d be asleep,” Ivy said, her voice rough from too many nights without rest.

Aelin didn’t turn. “I don’t sleep much anymore.”

Ivy lowered herself beside her, careful not to meet her gaze just yet. “You’re still cold?”

“Not cold. Just… hollow.” A
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  • The Prince Of The Lycans My Mate Dark Secrets   Chapter 134

    The day after the administrators left, nothing happened.No backlash. No uprising. No sudden collapse to justify regret.The sky did what skies do. Wind moved without checking allegiance. A child in the camp burned breakfast and laughed about it instead of apologizing to an invisible authority.Aelin noticed the absence first.Not in danger.Of expectation.She woke without the sense that a decision was waiting for her like a held breath. No pull toward meetings. No pressure dreams. No distant arguments tugging at her awareness like loose threads.For the first time since the Veil broke, the world did not require her opinion.She sat with that longer than she expected.Aera joined her at the edge of camp, hair still loose, eyes clear. “I didn’t feel it today,” she said.Aelin smiled. “Neither did I.”They packed slowly. Not because they were far. Because nothing rushed them anymore.Jayden came back from a short patrol and frowned. “No one followed us.”Ivy shrugged. “Guess we’re fi

  • The Prince Of The Lycans My Mate Dark Secrets   Chapter 133

    The backlash didn’t come from rulers.It came from helpers.From people who had kept systems running quietly for years and were tired of pretending neutrality meant innocence. Clerks. Mediators. Record keepers. The ones who knew where every lever was buried and hated that no one was supposed to pull them anymore.They called it coordination fatigue.Aelin called it grief with a clipboard.The first incident was small. A trade registrar “temporarily” standardized tolls across three regions. No vote. No sunset clause. Just efficiency justified by urgency.It worked.That was the problem.Goods moved faster. Prices stabilized. People relaxed.And just like that, convenience sharpened its teeth.Jayden brought the report at dusk, jaw tight. “They’re saying it’s provisional.”Ivy snorted. “So was every tyranny’s childhood.”Aera sat cross-legged on a crate, listening, eyes sharp. She’d grown quieter these past weeks. Not withdrawn. Focused. Like someone learning the weight of words before

  • The Prince Of The Lycans My Mate Dark Secrets   Chapter 132

    The offer didn’t come with banners.That was how Aelin knew it was serious.It arrived as an invitation written in careful ink, delivered by three different messengers who didn’t know about each other. Each copy is identical. Each word chosen sounds reasonable. Respectful. Temporary.A meeting. A coalition. A framework.No throne. No crown. No god-language.Just structure asking to be trusted.Jayden read the letter once, then again, slower. “They’ve learned,” he said.Ivy leaned against a tree, arms crossed. “Or they’ve adapted. Which is worse?”Aera stood close to Aelin, reading over her shoulder. “They keep saying interim. Like that word can’t fossilize.”Aelin folded the letter and slid it into her coat. “That’s the danger of soft power,” she said. “It doesn’t announce itself. It just gets convenient.”The meeting was set in a city that had survived every regime by never fully belonging to one. Stone buildings stacked tight. Streets are narrow enough to discourage marching arm

  • The Prince Of The Lycans My Mate Dark Secrets   Chapter 131

    The agreements didn’t settle cleanly.They never do.Three days after the basin meeting, the first fracture appeared—not violent, not dramatic. Just a refusal. A river guild downstream ignored the interface timelines and rerouted water without consultation. Not out of malice. Out of habit.People had learned how to obey systems faster than they learned how to maintain them.Aelin heard about it from a runner who arrived breathless and embarrassed, as if apologizing for being human.“They said the old rules still applied,” he told Jayden. “Said someone would step in if it was wrong.”Jayden rubbed his eyes. “And when no one did?”“They waited,” the runner said. “Then they argued. Then they dug anyway.”Ivy scoffed. “Of course they did.”Aera looked stricken. “So it’s already failing?”Aelin shook her head. “No. It’s behaving exactly as expected.”They walked to the river together. No escort. No proclamation. Just four people arriving on foot with dust on their boots.The banks were cro

  • The Prince Of The Lycans My Mate Dark Secrets   Chapter 130

    The knock wasn’t physical.It never is, when power thinks it’s being polite.Aelin felt it just before dawn—a careful pressure at the edge of awareness, like someone clearing their throat before speaking. Not demand. Not a threat. A request wrapped in manners.She sat up before the light reached the basin.Jayden was already awake. So was Ivy. None of them had slept deeply. Not from fear. From proximity to consequence.Aera stirred last, blinking as if she’d been dreaming of instructions and woken without them.“Something’s coming,” she said.“Yes,” Aelin replied. “And it’s learned to ask.”The air cooled.Not cold. Regulated.Footsteps approached from three directions at once. Not an ambush. A demonstration.By the time the sun crested the stone wall, twelve figures stood at the basin’s edge.They didn’t wear crowns.That alone made this different.They wore insignia—subtle, mismatched, carefully chosen to look earned instead of inherited. Guild marks. Council cords. Pack braids. Ink

  • The Prince Of The Lycans My Mate Dark Secrets   Chapter 129

    They reached the basin by nightfall.Not the wildflower field—that stayed behind them like a decision already made. This place was lower, broader, ringed by natural stone walls that curved inward as if the land had once tried to hold something here and then thought better of it.Aelin liked that.Nothing pressed. Nothing asked.The stars moved. Properly this time. No hovering. No watching.They made camp without speaking it into a ceremony. Ivy took first watch by habit, not command. Jayden checked the perimeter once, then stopped. The land didn’t need it.Aera sat near the fire, turning a small stone over and over in her fingers. Not a focus. Just something solid.“I keep expecting it to come back,” she said quietly. “The pull. The sense that I’m being… finished.”Aelin stirred the fire with a stick. “It might. Old systems don’t forget quickly.”Aera nodded. “But if it does, I don’t think I’ll freeze this time.”Jayden smiled faintly. “That’s usually how you know you’ve crossed somet

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