Lahat ng Kabanata ng BETRAYED BY THE MOON : Kabanata 61 - Kabanata 70

Amara's pov The night clung to me like a second skin, heavy and suffocating. Even after Darius’s arms had steadied me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something inside me was unraveling, thread by fragile thread.I stood at the window of his chamber, staring out at the silver wash of moonlight over the forest. The trees swayed with an unseen rhythm, as though they too were whispering Lilith’s name. My reflection in the glass seemed distant, almost alien—the faint glow of the mark twisting at my wrist, the hollowness beneath my eyes.Darius hadn’t left my side. He lingered close, silent for once, his presence both a comfort and a weight. I could feel his gaze on me, searching, almost desperate to anchor me here when my soul felt like it was slipping into another world.“Say it aloud,” he urged softly, breaking the silence. “Whatever it is she shows you. Don’t carry it alone.”I pressed my palm against the cold glass. The whispers had not stopped since earlier, curling around the edg

Amara’s POVBy sunrise, the courtyard had been cleared.The Forsaken’s remains smoldered on the pyre beyond the walls, though even the flames had resisted, clinging to the corpse as if reluctant to consume it. The smoke curled upward in unnatural spirals, thick and black, staining the morning sky. Warriors stood watch in silence, some whispering prayers to the moon, others refusing to face the fire at all.But silence never lasts.When I entered the council hall, voices already clashed like blades. The chamber reeked of incense meant to purify, yet it couldn’t mask the stench of fear that clung to every breath.“They followed her eyes,” a warrior snarled, pacing near the long table. “That thing spoke to her.”“Lilith calls her daughter,” another growled. “If that is true, then what chance do we have?”Their words struck harder than the cold dawn air outside. I paused in the doorway, the weight of every stare pressing against me.Darius rose from the high seat at the head of the table.

Amara’s POVThe council chamber had emptied, but its echoes clung to me like smoke. I could still hear the whispers—my name bitten into the air like a curse, a plea, a warning.By the time I stepped into the courtyard, the sun was bleeding gold across the horizon. Warriors trained with stiff movements, their blades clashing harder than they needed to. The clang of steel was not practice—it was fear dressed as discipline.I felt it in the way their eyes flicked to me and away, quick as blades sheathed. Not hatred. Not yet. But the kind of doubt that could grow teeth if left unspoken.“Amara.”I turned. Mira stood at the edge of the yard, her hair pulled back, her jaw tight. She beckoned me with a tilt of her chin, leading me toward the watchtower stairs.We climbed in silence, each step creaking beneath the weight neither of us named. At the top, the view stretched wide—the forest in restless shadows, the river glinting like broken glass, smoke still curling where the Forsaken had been

Amara’s POVThe council chamber was a wound I couldn’t escape. Even after the elders left, their words clung to me like barbs: a leash, a door, a danger to us all.Darius guided me out, his hand steady on my arm, but the silence in the corridors was worse than the shouting. Warriors turned their eyes as I passed, some quick, some lingering too long, as though deciding whether I still belonged among them.By the time we reached our chamber, my chest burned. The door shut, and the dam inside me broke.“They want me chained,” I said, my voice low and sharp. “They look at me and see her shadow.”Darius leaned against the table, arms folded, but the steel in his posture was cracked by something rarer—hesitation. “They’re afraid. Fear twists loyalty into suspicion.”I turned on him. “And what about you? When the mark burns, do you ever wonder if they’re right?”His jaw tightened. He didn’t answer.The silence hollowed me more than any denial.I lifted my wrist, the faint glow pulsing beneat

Amara’s POVThe forest was a cathedral of silence.Mist curled low along the ground as the rogue led me deeper between the trees, every step away from the packhouse twisting my stomach tighter. Darius’s presence still lingered in the back of my mind , the echo of his hand on mine, the fury in his voice when I chose this path.But I couldn’t turn back now.The rogue stopped in a clearing where the moonlight broke through, pale and cold. His scars looked sharper in that light, his golden eyes almost too bright.“Take off the bandage,” he said.I glanced down at my wrist. I had kept it wrapped, as though cloth could silence the mark’s pulse. Slowly, I unwound it, baring the crescent etched into my skin. It glowed faintly, veins of shadow spidering from its curve like cracks in glass.The rogue watched, unreadable. “Good. Now call it.”My throat tightened. “Call what?”He stepped closer, his voice low, even. “The part of you you’ve been running from. Stop pretending it isn’t there. Stop s