جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 70

I knew that silhouette. Even before the moonlight caught the edge of his face, I knew. Every breath in my chest turned to ash as the figure stepped into the clearing, tall and composed, like he hadn’t just risen from the grave. Lucan. My brother. No. My dead brother. He’d been declared lost in the Blood War six years ago—torn apart by rogues on a scouting mission, or so they said. I remembered the blood-stained sigil they’d returned to us, the empty casket we buried. I remembered how my father never spoke after that, how my mother wept until her lungs gave out. “Impossible,” I whispered, my heart hammering loud enough to shatter the stars. But there he was. Armor scorched. Eyes unfamiliar. A faint scar dragging down his left cheek—he never had that. Kael stepped in front of me instinctively, but I pushed past him. My legs trembled as I approached the man I used to call my best friend, my protector, my anchor. “Lucan?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Is it really you?” His gaze

The altar pulsed beneath me like a second heartbeat—louder, older, and furious. The silver light from my blood still shimmered on the stone, illuminating the chaos around us. Soren had vanished in the blast, flung into the shadows beyond the altar’s ring. I couldn’t see his body, couldn’t feel his presence. But I knew he wasn’t dead. Not yet. Kael’s hand found mine, blood and magic mixing between our fingers. “What did you just wake up?” he asked. I stared at the cracks spiderwebbing through the stone. “Something buried. Something sacred.” Lucan knelt beside one of the fissures. “We need to go. Before whatever’s down there decides we’re the threat.” But it was already too late. With a sound like stone grinding against bone, the center of the altar split open. The light didn’t pour out—it was pulled in. A hollow wind howled upward from the chasm, smelling of smoke, iron, and ancient magic. It dragged at my soul like a tide, demanding something I couldn’t name. My wolf howled i

They came like a storm. Silver armor flashing between the trees. Torches burning through the dark like a curse. Thirty, maybe forty warriors—Council enforcers bred for one purpose: subdue and silence. Kael pulled me back behind the stone column as the war horns fell quiet. I could still feel the cold in the air left by that thing. My shadow self. It had gone—but not far. I could feel its hunger in my blood, echoing my heartbeat with every passing second. “We hold the line,” Kael muttered, voice steady even as his hands trembled slightly against the hilt of his blade. “No one touches you.” Lucan stood on the other side of me, one arm cradling his ribs. “We’re outnumbered. They’ll expect us to run.” I straightened. “Then let’s disappoint them.” I barely recognized my own voice—calm, icy, like it belonged to someone ancient. Nyx’s mark on my chest pulsed softly beneath my skin. Not screaming yet, but waiting. Always waiting. We didn’t have to wait long. The first Enforcer broke t

My mind couldn’t catch up. One second, Nyx was peeling me apart like threads from old silk— The next, he stepped into the clearing. My father. A ghost wrapped in flesh. A myth reborn. His voice slammed through the air like a war drum. “Get your hands off my daughter.” Nyx stilled. For the first time… The god of night hesitated. “You shouldn’t be here,” Nyx said quietly, their voice tight with something that sounded disturbingly close to unease. My father took one step forward, eyes glowing faintly with a molten silver I’d only ever seen reflected in my own. “Neither should you.” “You were exiled.” “I returned.” “You were dead.” His smile was slow, sharp. “So were you, once.” Kael dropped to the ground beside me, freed from Nyx’s hold. He immediately pulled me to him, his heart racing against my shoulder. “Elara,” he whispered, voice cracking. “Is that really—?” “I don’t know,” I breathed, eyes locked on the man in front of me. “I saw him die.” But the man—this wolf—w

We didn’t speak for a long time after we escaped the ruins. The forest was too quiet. Too still. Kael kept glancing over his shoulder like he expected the trees to peel open and reveal another ancient god or crypt-bound shadow prophet. I couldn’t blame him. I felt it too. The watching. “Tell me again,” Lucan finally muttered, “why we aren’t torching every cursed ruin we come across?” “Because,” I rasped, “the only way out of this is through.” Kael slowed beside me. “You’re not okay.” No, I wasn’t. I felt like my skin was stretched over something wild and unfamiliar. Like the ghost of that Luna—the first rebel—was still curled beneath my ribs, whispering things I didn’t understand yet. “She spoke to me,” I said. Kael frowned. “Who?” “The ghost. Behind the throne. She said Veyrix wants my crown… not my survival.” Lucan cursed under his breath. “Great. So that guy is playing his own game.” “He’s more than that,” Thorne said, falling into step beside us. His face was lined w