Semua Bab Alpha Ethan: Bab 111 - Bab 116

Liana’s POVThe ancient thing beneath Midnight wakes up in the worst possible mood.I feel it stretch—not physically, but existentially—like a cat the size of a continent rolling over after a nap it did not consent to taking. The void around us wobbles, reflections cracking as if reality itself just realized it’s sitting on someone else’s couch.The Arbiter stiffens.PRIORITY ALERT. UNREGISTERED PRIMORDIAL PRESENCE—“Oh good,” Blake says somewhere to my left, dangling upside down on a shard of fractured sky. “Because this day was going way too orderly.”Despite everything—despite the pressure, the pain, the cosmic trial—I bark out a laugh.The ancient presence purrs.I nearly lose my footing.Gravehowl’s presence pulses with unmistakable amusement. Ah. You’ve met the Sleeper.“The what?” I gasp, steadying myself as gravity hiccups sideways.Midnight’s oldest resident, he replies calmly. Predates the Crown. Predates me. Likes jokes. Hates rules.The Arbiter rotates sharply toward the e

Liana’s POVMidnight never rests.It only pretends to.The forest settles into something like calm, but I’ve learned the difference between peace and a held breath. Leaves don’t quite still. Shadows stretch a fraction too long. Even the wolves—those who survived the Hunt and the trial and the tearing sky—move with an edge to them, ears flicking, noses lifting again and again.The Crown hums low beneath my ribs.Not fear.Attention.I’m walking with Ethan when it tightens—just a whisper of tension, a subtle shift that makes my spine straighten and my steps slow.He feels it instantly. “What is it?”I don’t answer right away. The sensation isn’t violent enough to name as danger, but it’s wrong in a way that prickles behind my eyes.“We’re not alone,” I say finally.Blake, who is somehow already leaning against a tree despite having been walking a second ago, looks up. “Please tell me it’s friendly.”“No,” I say.That’s when the forest parts.Not violently. Not unnaturally. Just… politel

Liana’s POVPeace is not quiet.That’s the first thing I learn after the world stops ending.Peace is busy. It hums and moves and demands attention in ways chaos never did. Chaos is simple—you survive it or you don’t. Peace asks what you plan to build with what’s left.Midnight wakes with intention now, not reflex. The land no longer flinches every time the Crown stirs. Instead, it listens. Paths form where wolves travel most often, the earth compacting naturally beneath their paws. Streams shift their courses just enough to provide water near new dens. Trees bend their growth to leave open clearings where pups like to play.The forest isn’t obeying me.It’s cooperating.That difference settles deep in my bones.Weeks have passed since the Observers withdrew. Since the sky last cracked with impossible light. Long enough for wounds to scab, for fear to dull into memory. Long enough for routines to take shape—training at dawn, rebuilding at midday, council gatherings as the sun bleeds i