Lahat ng Kabanata ng HIS BABY GROWS INSIDE ME, BUT HIS HEART BELONGS TO HER : Kabanata 51 - Kabanata 60

The sky turned silver.Not the gentle shimmer of dawn nor the storm-heavy clouds of prophecy, but an eerie, pale silver that swallowed all other colors. Trees bowed in unnatural silence. The forest seemed to shrink away, the leaves curling in on themselves. Birds stopped singing. The wind didn’t dare move.And then came the footsteps.Not heavy. Not loud. But measured. Purposeful. Each one echoed like stone grinding against bone.Aria stood at the forest edge, clutching Kael’s arm, unable to take her eyes off the approaching figures.“They’re not wolves,” she murmured.“No,” the Prophetess whispered, a mixture of awe and fear in her voice. “They never were.”The Hollow Court emerged from the mist.They looked like statues carved from moonlight and ruined tall, angular, and impossibly graceful. Each figure was draped in regal garments made from shadow and bone-thread. Crowns of twisted antlers or obsidian branches adorned their heads. Their eyes glowed with the deep, still light of anc

The sky hung heavy with ash-colored clouds, a muffled world stretched beneath it unnaturally still, as if the earth itself was holding its breath. The forest had grown quiet in a way that unsettled even the bravest of wolves. Birds had ceased their songs. The wind had died. The world waited for something none of them could name.Aria stood at the edge of the clearing, her fingers brushing over Rowan’s hair as he leaned into her side. Elara sat across from them, her knees drawn to her chest, her violet eyes flicking constantly to the trees as if expecting them to split open and reveal some horror from the Veil.“We don’t have much time,” Lyra said, emerging from the tent with the Prophetess's book cradled in her arms. The ancient tome was bound in leather that looked far too new for its age, pulsing faintly with heat. She handed it to Aria, her expression carved in stone.“The ritual site marked here it’s real. I’ve seen it in the Highlands when I was younger. It’s called the Hollow Ba

The wind tore through the clearing where they had last seen their children, the beings their children had become. The howls of the Rift Hounds had faded, but the damage remained: scorched earth, shattered stone, and the lingering ache of magic twisted too far from natural law. Trees bent unnaturally, as if bowing to something older and crueler than time.Aria sat still in the center, her hair tangled, fingers clutching the spot where the twin-voiced figure had vanished. Her heart ached like it had been pierced anew this time not by loss, but by a choice she knew was coming. A choice that would break her no matter the outcome.Kael knelt beside her, resting a firm hand on her shoulder, grounding her.“They’ll come back,” he said again, but the conviction in his voice had dulled. The images the twins had shown them still burned behind his eyes cities unmade, skies devoured, wolves and humans reduced to drifting shadows.Callen paced the edge of the clearing, sword still in hand. “We can

The moment the third toll of the temple bell echoed across the land, the wind died. Trees froze mid-sway. The stars blinked out. It was as though the world itself was holding its breath.Aria gripped Kael's arm to steady herself. The Thorn was silent within her, and that terrified her more than any shadow or Rift. It had become her compass, her sword, her shield. Without it, she felt exposed no, *unfinished.*"We need to move," she said, voice tight. "Whatever that temple is, it wasn't meant to be in this world. And now it is."Lyra nodded. "The scouts said it was floating?""Hovering," Callen confirmed, unrolling a hand-drawn map freshly marked with red ink. "Above the Black Hills. Just appeared out of nowhere, like someone dropped it from the stars. It's not natural.""No," Aria murmured, staring at the map. "It's not. It's a memory. A forgotten place the Dreamer pulled from beyond the Veil."Kael leaned over the table. "What would it gain from making this temple appear now?""It’s

The ground trembled beneath their feet as the throne split open, casting shards of obsidian across the ancient altar. The true Hollowed Queen stood tall in her heart, her presence commanding the sky to darken, the wind to bow, the very light to flee from her gaze. Her voice, when it echoed, wasn’t heard, it was felt. Deep in the bones. In the blood.Aria couldn’t breathe.The Queen’s eyes bottomless, starless locked with hers, and every instinct screamed for her to run. But her legs wouldn't obey. Her feet might as well have been rooted in stone. Elara and Rowan hung suspended in the air between them, wrapped in silver-blue threads like marionettes dangling from a cruel puppeteer.“You carry her light,” the Queen said, stepping forward. Each movement sent pulses through the ground, causing cracks to spread through the stone circle. “You carry her sacrifice.”“I’m not her,” Aria managed to say, though her voice came out thinner than she intended. “I’m not your vessel.”The Queen’s smil