Semua Bab Wounded Rose of Garden Metro: Bab 81 - Bab 90

Cassidy’s WhisperCassidy Vale never trusted brute force for long. Violence burned fast, but whispers — whispers could hollow out a fortress from within.She sat in a quiet room beneath the city archives, its walls lined with old ledgers and sealed records. Before her stood a nervous young man in a plain coat. His name was Miles Trent — one of Marino’s administrative clerks.“You work in the estate,” Cassidy said softly, her voice smooth as silk, “close to the girl, close to her routines.”Miles swallowed. “I—I file documents, ma’am. I barely see her.”Cassidy smiled, crossing one leg over the other. “But you see enough. Letters. Movements. Visitors. You’re invisible, and invisible people are useful.”She slid a small pouch across the table. It landed with a soft jingle. Gold. Enough to drown guilt for a while.Miles stared at it, his hands twitching. “What do you want from me?”Cassidy’s lips curved. “Information. Letters that pass through her hands. And if opportunity allows… a litt

StormlightThunder rolled over Garden Metro, low and restless, shaking the windows of the Marino estate. Rain drummed against the glass in relentless rhythm, washing the city’s haze into streaks of silver.Elara stood by the window, her reflection blurred by the storm. She had not slept — couldn’t, not with the inquiry looming and the city’s whispers growing sharper by the day.Yet tonight, something felt … different. The air itself hummed with a strange energy, like the city was holding its breath.Behind her, Lena entered quietly, carrying a lantern. “The storm’s cutting power lines across the district,” she said. “Half the city’s gone dark.”Elara turned from the window. “Darkness might be mercy. Fewer headlines, fewer eyes.”Lena set the lantern down, studying her carefully. “You look calmer than you should.”“I’m not calm,” Elara said softly. “I’m … listening.”Echoes of RumorBy morning, the rain had eased, but the tension hadn’t. Servants moved quickly through the halls, eyes l

The Hollow ChamberThe chamber that only hours earlier had been a storm was now eerily quiet. The reporters had fled to file their headlines, the Councilors to save their names, the guards to whisper among themselves.Only a few flickering lanterns remained, their light stretching thin over the marble floor. Water dripped softly from the ceiling where the storm had leaked in.Elara stood near the center of the room, the podium abandoned behind her. The satchel that once felt impossibly heavy now dangled loosely from her hand, its leather wet with rain and sweat.Her knees felt weak. Not the trembling panic of before — but the drained, hollow weakness of someone who had sprinted for miles only to find herself on the edge of a cliff, staring at the vastness below.The echoes of shouting and flashbulbs still lived in the walls, like ghosts refusing to leave.She inhaled deeply. The air smelled of wet stone and something metallic — the scent of power bleeding out of a room.Lena’s Presen

The storm had passed, but Garden Metro was still holding its breath. The air carried that strange, damp stillness that comes after something loud and violent has been torn apart. It wasn’t peace. Not yet. It was the fragile quiet of a city that didn’t know what to believe anymore.Elara stood alone on the balcony long before dawn, a thin shawl wrapped around her shoulders. The mist hung low over the streets, softening the harsh edges of the city’s towers. She had spent so many nights bracing for Cassidy’s next strike that silence itself now felt foreign. Smoke rose from a distant chimney, and somewhere in the docks, a bell tolled softly. Life went on — slow, uncertain, but moving.She let her hands rest against the cold iron railing. For weeks, she had lived beneath the shadow of whispers that weren’t hers, a name dragged through mud by a woman who owned the city’s voice. Now that same city spoke her name differently. Cautiously. Not quite with trust — but no longer with hatred alone.

The air in Garden Metro had grown thin, stretched taut like a rope just before it snapped. Though the storm had passed, though the whispers in the streets had changed, something heavier now loomed above the city. It wasn’t the chaos of Cassidy Vale’s open rule. It was something quieter, more dangerous — the silence of a predator crouching before it strikes.Elara felt it before anyone said a word.She had begun to rise early each morning, as if the city itself tugged at her consciousness before the sun touched the roofs. She wrapped a coat around her shoulders and stepped onto the balcony, where a low fog rolled over the cobblestones like restless breath. The streets below were no longer indifferent. People walked faster now, heads turning, eyes sharper. Fear hadn’t disappeared; it had changed shape. It was no longer aimed only at her.It was beginning to aim at Cassidy too.Lena joined her with two mugs of coffee, steam curling between them. “They’re restless,” she said simply.“They