All Chapters of HIS BABY GROWS INSIDE ME, BUT HIS HEART BELONGS TO HER : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The sky bled grey as the sun failed to rise.Instead, a shroud of mist pressed down on the Highlands like a warning thick, heavy, unnatural. Birds didn’t sing. Wolves didn’t howl. Even the trees, tall and proud, bowed inward, their leaves brittle from the cold that wasn’t cold.Kael stood on the ridge above the camp, watching the horizon.Smoke in the east.Again.Another village is gone.No survivors.Just the same three symbols scorched into the earth: Circle. Slash. Bone.The Hollows were spreading.And the fog? It came first. Always.In the council tent, Aria sat before the elders, the old scroll resting in her lap. She hadn’t slept. Her fingers trembled, not from fear, but from the truth she could no longer ignore.She wasn’t just a protector anymore.She was the *Keeper*.The bearer of a lineage lost to myth those who walked between the spirit realm and the living world. The blood of the First Light, passed in secret from mother to daughter.The same blood that Thrennos had once

The wind carried the scent of ash and blood as night fell over the Stone Vale. Shadows danced around the ancient Circle, cast by flames that licked skyward from the enormous pyre at its heart. The Bonefire, sacred and wild, roared in defiance of the veil between worlds. Sparks curled like spirits breaking free, spinning in maddened spirals above the ring of stones.The Prophetess stood barefoot at the edge of the fire, her hollow eyes gleaming, her silver hair whipping in the rising wind. Around her, the Hollowed chanted in a language lost to time. Their robes moved like smoke. Bones clacked at their belts. Each one bore the mark of a scorched circle over the heart.I clutched Rowan’s hand tightly. He stood still, his young face pale in the flickering light, eyes locked on the Prophetess. Beside him, Elara trembled, her little fingers buried in Kael’s coat. Their bond shimmered faintly between them, a golden thread visible only in firelight, pulsing with each heartbeat.“She means to

The ashes of the Bonefire had long since cooled, scattered by the wind that swept across the mountain’s edge like the breath of something ancient. But the energy it had left behind still clung to the land unseen, heavy, like a watchful gaze that never blinked.The Hollowed had vanished into the mists after the Prophetess’s retreat, but her final words echoed louder than any blade or scream could: “The gate is yours to open, Aria… but the key is not yours alone.”That night haunted my sleep. I saw the Prophetess’s eyes in the fire, the curve of her twisted smile as her hood slipped back and revealed not age but eternity. I saw Elara and Rowan, glowing under the bonefire’s light, their hands clasped as if bound by something neither time nor blood could sever.And deeper still, I felt something stir in the Veil. As if the ritual hadn’t just been a warning but a summons.Kael spent the early hours sharpening his blades in silence.Not because he needed them.Because he couldn’t sit still

Everything was… quiet.Not the silence of peace, but the kind that comes before something ancient wakes.As I stepped beyond the Gate, the colors of the world shifted. Sky bled silver. Trees stretched impossibly high, their bark blackened and weeping. The ground shimmered, not solid, but not air. This was the Veilrealm the space between life and death. The space between choice and destiny.It knew me.I felt it in my bones. The way the air curled around me, whispering my name in a hundred forgotten tongues. **Aria. Aria of Ash. Aria of Flame. Aria the Lock.**But I wasn’t alone.A presence stirred, then formed.A man barefoot, cloaked in wind. His eyes were white, glowing softly. His body shimmered like mist given form.“You came,” he said, his voice like a memory echoing across lifetimes.“Who are you?” I asked, though my heart already knew.“Your other half,” he said. “Not of love. Of legacy.”I took a step back. “You’re the Veilborn King.”He nodded once. “Once. Before I broke the

We ran.Not from fear, but from the weight of time unraveling behind us.The Seed had come and vanished, leaving Elara in a suspended dream of root-memories, and that alone was enough to set the wind howling in our bones. I carried her in my arms, her body limp yet glowing faintly with threads of dormant power. Rowan refused to leave her side, and Kael led the way like a man with fire beneath his feet.Our destination: the Bone Tree.The source of the prophecy. The place where the First Flame once touched the mortal realm.It was said to be where spirits whispered truths to ancient tongues, where the air itself remembered the cries of those who had shaped the world. And now, we hoped it held answers. We hoped it would help us bring Elara back.The path twisted through fog-soaked woods. Time lost its grip. Hours felt like days. Every shadow watched us.Lyra muttered charms as we moved, leaving trails of light to keep the forest at bay. Callen walked with his blade drawn, his senses raz