Lahat ng Kabanata ng Lyra, His Second Chance Mate: Kabanata 231 - Kabanata 240

The circle was older than any temple Nyxar had ever seen.It breathed with a kind of slumbering power - deep and rhythmic, like the heartbeat of something that hadn’t moved in centuries but still lived. The moss-covered stone pulsed faintly, silver veins running like cracks down its face. The glowing mist curled at the edges of the fissure, thick with memory and magic.Ashling didn’t step inside the circle. She hovered just outside the ring of roots and worn runes, watching Nyxar with an unreadable expression.“She’s been dreaming for a long time,” the girl whispered. “She won’t wake up kind. Not at first.”Nyxar glanced at Elira, who nodded, fingers flexing near her weapon but not drawing it.“We don’t want kindness,” Nyxar said softly. “We want truth.”He stepped into the circle.The moment his boot touched the inner ring of stone, the air shifted. Windless pressure pressed against his chest, like hands testing him, measuring.“Blood,” a voice hissed - not aloud, but into his skull.

Lyra’s POVThe room still smelled like him. Faintly, but still.Even after all this time - after the linens had been changed, the floors scrubbed, the windows opened to every wind - the scent of Kane lingered. That particular depth that was only his.Lyra sat on the edge of the bed, fingers wrapped around a folded note sealed with the crescent of the Council. Her thumb traced the wax, hesitating.They wanted to speak. A few of them. “Privately,” the note said. About “unsettling developments within the kingdom.”She’d seen worse attempts at diplomacy.A quiet knock echoed at the doorframe. She didn’t look up. “Come in, Ekreth.”The dragon stepped inside, his coat dripping from the rain outside. He didn’t speak at first - just stood there, watching her with eyes that had seen too much.“You’re going to meet them,” he said finally.“They asked,” she replied. “About disturbances in the northern border.”“You think that’s really what this is about?”She said nothing.Ekreth walked farther

Lyra POV The kneeling silence held like a drawn breath. Then Lyra lifted her chin, eyes burning silver and gold, her voice clear and sharp as steel:“Stand.”Nyxar rose first, silent and steady. The others followed - Elira with grace, Ekreth with grim resolve, and Thalen like a ghost finally remembering her name.But the council? The survivors remained where they were. Slumped. Broken. Eyes lowered, magic spent.Cowards.Veyla hissed as she tried to stand, but her limbs trembled. Her shoulder wound glowed faintly with residual backlash.“Let them rise,” Nyxar murmured at Lyra’s side, his voice low. “Let them show the world they kneel or flee.”“No,” Lyra said, gaze sweeping across them. “They don’t rise yet. Not until the truth does.”She stepped forward, each stride ringing against the stone floor like a drumbeat.“You cast spells bound by oath and blood. You tried to end a ruler without trial. That is high treason under the very laws you swore to uphold.”A younger councilor began

Lyra POVThe castle was quieter now. The square outside still buzzed with voices - cheers, prayers, questions - but inside the halls, the stone had grown still again. As if the fortress was holding its breath.Lyra walked slowly through the corridor, barefoot. Shoes in her hand. Her tunic clung to skin . But the divine mark still glowed faintly beneath the bruises. A spiral of light and fire. Not even she could will it away.She reached the chamber she and Kane once shared, pushed open the heavy door, and stepped inside.It smelled like him. Still. She felt pain thinking about it. And loneliness.The curtains stirred in a breeze from the balcony. The fire had burned low in the hearth. She crossed to the washbasin, gripped its edges, and stared at herself in the cracked mirror.Not broken. Not exactly. But not whole, either.She touched her collarbone, just below the divine mark. Her fingers trembled. The shift hadn’t fully receded - her nails still blackened, elongated. Her eyes… stil

Lyra POVThe scent of steam and ash clung faintly to her skin, no matter how thoroughly she’d scrubbed. Beneath the black tunic, silver-threaded at the cuffs, the ghost of her divine mark still pulsed - an ember buried just beneath her ribs. It hadn’t faded since the trial. It hadn’t stopped glowing. And neither had the weight behind her sternum. It was constant now. Awake.She walked through the keep’s old stone corridors with slow, steady steps. Her footsteps echoed through halls older than her name, older than her lineage. Her palm brushed the wall in passing, trailing along worn stone and ancient tapestries now heavy with smoke. When her fingers passed the alcove where Kane used to wait after council meetings - just out of sight, always pretending not to - she paused.A beat. A breath.Her fingers curled slightly. The grief was still there, but duller. No longer the raw wound it had been. She missed him. She always would. What they were. What they nearly became. But for the first