جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 110

Testing Loyalties The tension was high in the air as Iris's consciousness echoed faintly with the Moon Goddess's voice. Her comments caused her knees to give way, and her heart was thumping in her chest like a drum. Calm but uncompromising, the voice replied, "You've unlocked the power, but now you must prove your worth." "You can only be followed to the end by one of them." Iris's hands clenched into fists as she shook her head. Her voice broke as she murmured, "Why must I choose?" "Have I done enough?" The voice grew softer without faltering. It is the mark's method. You cannot bear both of their loads, and balance is necessary for the future. Iris looked at Aiden and Damon, who were standing beside her. Their postures were stiff as they gazed at her with shocked and perplexed faces. As though echoing her distress, the luminous vines on her arm pulsed softly. "What's going on?" With a worried tone, Aiden inquired. Iris, who could hardly look them in the eye, remarked, "

The silence that followed was thick as frost. Iris’s breath clouded in the air, even though no cold touched her skin. It wasn’t the temperature that made her shiver, but the echo of the Goddess’s voice still clinging to her mind: A betrayal yet unseen will test your resolve. Each word pulsed with weight, like a heartbeat echoing through her bones. Beside her, Aiden stood tall and silent, but the way his shoulders tensed told her he felt it too—that there was an energy shift. The path they walked was no longer a solid stone but a bridge of woven silver light, suspended over nothingness. The void below shimmered, deep and endless. "Are you okay?" Aiden’s voice cut through the haze. Iris blinked, grounding herself. " Yes, but just... unsettled." He nodded, but concern tightened his jaw. The mark on her wrist, once a steady glow of golden vines, now flickered between gold and black. It twisted subtly, like it had a will of its own. They continued on in silence. The air shifte

The path leading from the Temple of Vesta was narrow and twisted, descending into a hidden ravine carved deep into the bones of the earth. Jagged cliffs loomed above, their surfaces cloaked in frost and moss. Fog clung to the stones like a living thing, curling around Iris’s legs with every step, and a weight pressed down on her chest, as though the dead themselves were watching from beneath the soil.Iris walked slowly, her boots crunching the frost-laced grass, her mind still echoing with the temple’s visions. She hadn’t spoken them aloud—not to Aiden, not even to herself. She kept her eyes forward, her heart guarded. But her wrist betrayed her. The mark burned against her skin: a crescent moon wreathed in thorns, pulsing in time with every uncertain thought.Aiden walked beside her, quiet but vigilant. He had changed too. The temple had shown him something. Iris hadn’t asked what. She wasn’t ready to know.After an hour’s descent, the narrow path opened into a clearing surrounded

The battlefield fell silent.Ash floated in the air like mourning snow as the child descended through the beam of moonlight. Suspended above the broken stone basin, the boy hovered effortlessly, his eyes a duality of silver and ink-black. His hair, a wavy mix of Iris’s pale strands and Damon’s darker shade, stirred in a wind that had no source.“Iris,” Aiden said, his voice low, strained, awed. “Is that...?”Her throat closed. She couldn’t speak.The child touched the ground, and the pulse that followed nearly knocked them all to their knees. Damon, mid-step, faltered. The corrupted blade in his hand trembled.“I told you,” Damon growled, though his voice had softened with confusion, “we weren’t ready for him.”The boy turned his gaze to Damon first.“You stole from her,” the child said, his voice otherworldly—layered, like more than one being spoke through him. “And corrupted what was not yours.”“I protected her!” Damon shouted.The child didn’t flinch.“You only protected your own

Silence hung like a veil over the ruined battlefield. The blackened trees stood as scorched skeletons against a silver dawn, their charred limbs outstretched to a sky that had only just remembered peace. Smoke curled from the ground in tired wisps, curling around the broken stones and fallen statues. Iris stood motionless in the center of it all, her hand still outstretched where Damon had vanished into the light. He was gone. The Blade of Balance now rested in the earth at her feet, pulsing gently—no longer burning with power, but with memory. Aiden approached slowly. His clothes were torn, his skin scraped and bruised, but his eyes were fixed only on her. “Did he do it?” she asked, voice a hollow whisper. Aiden nodded. “Vaelor’s gone. Sealed. For now.” Iris closed her eyes. “At the cost of Damon’s soul.” Their son stood nearby, silent, watching the horizon as the first rays of the sun slipped through the clouds. He didn’t speak—not yet. The weight of what he was, wh