Semua Bab The Mate Games: Bab 171 - Bab 180

ALTHEAAfter Asher asks me to leave, I do my best not to let the tears that sting the back of my fall. His silence had echoed louder than any thing he could have said, and the door closing behind him might as well have been a guillotine falling. I don’t breathe. Not for a long time. My eyes are fixed on the door, my chest rising in shallow gasps, like my body doesn’t know what to do without him standing there, looking at me like I’d torn his soul in half. Then I turn and leave for my room, praying to the goddess I don’t see anyone else.Because I did.I never meant to. Not like this. Back in my room, the quiet stretches on, until it feels like the walls are pressing in. I decide to go to the library. At least the books there could be an escape from my dreadful reality. Walking to the far end of the room where an old bookshelf stands, dusty and mostly untouched. I don’t know why I go there—maybe because I can’t stand still. Maybe because I need something, anything, to distract me fro

ASHERSomething is wrong tonight.I stand at the edge of my window, staring down at the silent courtyard below. The moonlight feels colder than usual, like it’s watching me. Like it knows something I don’t.The wind brushes against the tower walls, soft but sharp, carrying a strange unease. I try to shake the feeling off, but it lingers. I haven’t slept in days. Not properly. Every time I close my eyes, I feel something crawling beneath my skin. Not fear, just… anticipation.Like something’s coming.I turn away from the window and cross the room, stopping by the fireplace. The fire’s almost out. Only a few glowing embers remain. I crouch beside it, trying to coax it back to life, but then I hear it.A sound, soft, barely there. A shift of breath. A boot scuffing the stone floor.I freeze.My heart skips. I reach slowly for the dagger on the table beside me.“You’re slower than I remember,” a voice says behind me.I whip around, blade in hand.He’s already standing there. Masked. Tall.

ALTHEAI don’t know why she calls me to her chambers.Madeline has been playing queen, and usually sends messengers or commands through council halls. But this time, she sends a single guard with no words. Just a nod. A silent gesture to follow.I go, even though every part of me screams not to.Her door creaks open, and I step inside.She’s sitting by the fire. She’s in a simple dress. Ni fancy robes. Just a thin shawl over her shoulders and her silver hair braided back. For a moment, she doesn’t look like the Queen she proclaims herself to be She looks like someone’s tired mother.“Come in,” she says softly, not looking at me.I step forward, careful. The fire cracks. I can feel the heat against my skin, but I still feel cold.“I know you have questions,” she says.I clench my fists. “Do you plan to answer them now?”Her eyes meet mine. “Only one. The one that matters.”I don’t speak.She gestures to the seat beside her, and I sit, stiff, like I’m preparing for war.The room is too

Many decades ago…I saw someone today. When I went out to get some air around the kingdom.Not in a dream. Not a vision. Not a flicker of shadow behind my thoughts.A real figure. A real boy.He was standing just beyond the tree line. Still. Watching.I nearly dropped the bag was carrying. My groceries spilled onto the floor, my milk spreading across the floor. My breath caught in my chest and stayed there, trembling like a bird. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stood there in the quiet, wearing a cloak too thin for the cold.And those eyes.Pale. Like frost on glass. Like moonlight stretched too far.It could have been him.But I don’t know.He was taller than I remember. Lean, but with that sharpness to his shoulders—like he hadn’t grown slow and soft but fast, sudden, stretched by something other than time. There was something unnatural about the way he stood. Balanced. Like he could leap forward or vanish into the wind at any second.I didn’t call out.I couldn’t.Because the mo

Many decades ago… It’s done. The ward is down. I took it apart piece by piece, fingers trembling, breath caught between fear and something far older, something I dare not name. It was harder than I expected, not because of the magic itself, but because the moment I began unbinding the stones, I felt it. A pulse. Not in the ground, but in me. Like something had been waiting. Watching. Holding its breath as I held mine. And when the last string of spell-thread snapped beneath my hand, the air shifted. As if the forest exhaled. As if something buried had stirred. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe silence. Maybe peace. Maybe guilt. What I got was wind. A sudden, harsh gust that tore through the trees and rattled the windows of my cottage. The flame of my candle flared blue. The walls moaned. Something inside the old stones howled with it—a sound I haven’t heard since the old wars. Old magic. Older than me. Older than kings and gods and seers. It lives here n