Semua Bab Broken by One, Desired by All : Bab 361 - Bab 370

Zane's Point Of View "I just need to rest for five minutes," I muttered, my head resting heavily against the crook of Ronan's neck as he carried me toward the archway. "Five minutes... then we can keep moving." Ronan stopped dead in his tracks. His arms tightened around my back and knees, hard enough to compress my bruised ribs, and I felt the tremor of restrained fury running through his whole body. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" he snapped, his voice dropping into that dark, dangerous register he used when he was two seconds away from losing his temper. "Look at you, Zane! You're leaking blood from four different places, your ribs are shattered, and you can barely hold your head up! We're retreating back to the vanguard camp. Now." "Not with you looking at me like I'm made of glass," I rasped, forcing my eyes open to glare up at his jawline. "We came through that gate for one reason, Ronan. One. To stop the Dark Sigen from tearing the realms apart. And the only way we do th

Zane's Point Of View "What about the armies?" I asked, wiping another smear of foul, dark Sigen blood off the flat of my blade. "If the Sigen Lord is pushing all his forces toward the central core, he's leaving his flanks completely exposed. Their main vanguard has to be stretched thin by now." Ronan opened his mouth to answer, his jaw set, the calculation already visible behind his eyes. I could practically see the gears turning in his head, mapping troop positions and weak points the way he always did before committing to a plan. But before a single word could come out, a sharp, piercing chime cut through the quiet of the gorge, slicing clean through the tension between us. A violent, blood-red light burst from his side pocket, casting a harsh, pulsing glare over the slick obsidian walls and the headless corpse cooling at our feet. Even the air seemed to still, as if the gorge itself sensed that whatever came next would matter. I felt the hair on my arms rise, some primal instinc

Zane's Point Of ViewThe moment our boots crossed the threshold, the air changed - turning thick, oily, and freezing cold. BANG! Behind us, the colossal iron doors slammed shut with a thunderous boom that vibrated straight through our chest bones. The heavy sound echoed endlessly into the vast, unnatural void ahead, swallowed by a darkness that seemed to breathe. It felt as if the realm itself had inhaled us, and now held its breath, waiting. I jumped, spinning on my heel, my stolen steel blade raised before I could even think. The massive gate was completely sealed, the seam between the heavy doors fused shut as if it had never been opened in the first place. My heart hammered against my ribs, a cold dread pooling in my stomach at the sheer finality of it. There would be no clever retreat, no fallback plan. Whatever waited for us beyond this threshold, we would face it or die trying. I let out a long, slow sigh, rolling my shoulders to ease the tension in my back. "Well. No turni

Ronan's Point Of ViewThe steady, rhythmic weight of his head against my thigh was the only thing keeping my chest moving in and out. Every shallow breath he took felt borrowed against my own lungs, as though my body had forgotten how to function without confirmation that his still did. I didn't dare shift my posture. My legs were numb, cramped from hours spent anchored to the frigid obsidian floor, but I stayed pinned to the spot, my fingers tangled in his dark, sweat-matted hair. The violet mist swirled low around us like a lazy beast, creeping over the edge of the platform, tasting the air, as if it were waiting for the right moment to strike. I hated it. I hated how patient it seemed, how it curled back the instant I glared at it, only to creep forward again the second my attention wavered. For hours, the Sigen poison had burned through his blood, running hotter than a forge. I'd sat here listening to him choke on air that wasn't there, watching his jaw clench until I thought h

The sun didn't set. It disintegrated. Across the full expanse of the Eastern Border Wall, the clear blue sky split open like a dying fruit, bruised purple turning in seconds to a deep, sickly crimson. It was a thick, unnatural red that cast no warmth, bleeding through the clouds until the surrounding mountain peaks looked as though they were dripping with fresh gore. Soldiers who had marched for days without rest now stood frozen mid-stride, staring upward, unable to look away from the wound spreading across the heavens. Then came the cold. It hit the battlements not as a breeze, but as a solid wall of frost, snapping banners against their poles and freezing the sweat on the necks of four thousand waiting soldiers. Somewhere below, a young recruit's teeth chattered audibly, though whether from the temperature or from dread, no one could say. Up on the high parapet, the Alpha King stood with his boots planted shoulder-width apart, his heavy steel broadsword resting point-down again