Semua Bab Cursed by the Dark Prince : Bab 31 - Bab 40

The castle felt wrong the moment they stepped inside.Elara couldn’t name it—maybe it was the silence, or the faint scent of lilies that clung to the hallways, too sweet, too deliberate. The guards bowed low, eyes averted as Kael walked past them. None dared to meet his gaze, and yet Elara could feel them watching from the corners of the corridor.She hated it here. The obsidian floors, the endless mirrors, the way the walls seemed to hum with secrets.And at the heart of it all waited her—Queen Seraphine.Kael’s stepmother. The woman who had raised him, then tried to kill him when he’d refused to bow to the court’s corruption.Now she’d summoned them back. “For peace,” her letter had said. “For reconciliation.”Bullshit.Elara could feel Kael’s jaw tighten beside her. His hand brushed hers once—barely a touch—but it was enough to ground her. Enough to remind her that no matter what this place wanted to twist, they were still them.At least, she hoped so.The grand doors opened with a

The castle felt different that night. Quieter. Too quiet for comfort, too alive for peace. Elara moved through the halls with a candle in her hand, its flame trembling like her pulse. She couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Kael’s face — the look he’d given her after their last kiss, half-haunted, half-hungry. She told herself it was the bond. It had to be. Magic made hearts lie. Magic blurred everything. But when she reached the doors of the war room and found him there, still awake, still standing by the same map he’d been studying at dusk, her chest tightened in a way no spell could explain. “Can’t sleep either?” she asked softly. Kael didn’t turn. “Sleep avoids me.” “Maybe you avoid it first.” That earned a faint smirk. He looked over his shoulder; the candlelight caught the sharp line of his jaw, the tired fire in his eyes. “You shouldn’t be wandering the halls alone, healer. Shadows listen here.” “They listen everywhere,” she said, stepping closer. “

The throne room was silent, too silent. The air itself seemed to tremble, thick with something unnatural. Every torch flickered low, burning blue instead of gold.Elara stood by the steps of the dais, her pulse drumming against her throat as she watched Kael. He sat on his throne, one hand clenched around the armrest hard enough to splinter it. His eyes — once red like blood and fire — now glowed darker, like burning coals drowning in ash.“Kael,” she whispered. “You need to stop this.”He didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed somewhere far away, as though he were seeing a different world — one that none of them could reach.The air around him pulsed with shadow. Not just darkness, but something alive, something whispering. Words without sound. Promises she couldn’t understand.“Do you hear them too?” he finally said, his voice low, rough.Elara’s stomach twisted. “Who?”“The voices,” he murmured. “They tell me what must be done. What I was always meant to do.”The temperature dropped, br

Smoke clawed at the heavens. The palace was no longer a place of splendor but a bleeding heart, its marble halls trembling under the weight of chaos. Flames licked the tapestries, devouring the legacy of kings, while screams of the dying twisted through the corridors like a haunting symphony.Elara ran, her boots slipping over blood-slick tiles, the hem of her gown torn and blackened. The crown that once rested on her head had fallen somewhere in the chaos—she didn’t even notice. All she could hear was the thunder of war drums, the clash of steel, and Kael’s voice echoing from the throne room.“Elara!”It wasn’t him—not really. The voice that called her name was rougher, darker, laced with something otherworldly. The same dark power she had felt creeping into him ever since the gods’ whispers started gnawing at his mind.She pushed open the grand doors, coughing as the air thickened with smoke. Inside, Kael stood before the throne—a silhouette framed by fire and shadow. His armor glow

The air cracked open like thunder. The battlefield had gone eerily still, every sound swallowed by the unnatural quiet that followed the explosion. Smoke curled upward from the scorched earth, and through the haze, Elara could feel it—the pulse of something ancient and wrong spreading through the world.The curse had awakened.Her knees trembled as she rose, clutching her sword for balance. The faint golden threads of her magic flickered like candlelight in a storm, fighting against the heavy dark that now seeped from the ground itself. The wind carried whispers—thousands of them—all speaking Kael’s name like a hymn twisted into madness.“Elara,” murmured Captain Ren at her side, his voice shaking. “It’s not over. Look.”She lifted her gaze.The black lightning that had consumed Kael now coiled into the sky, stretching across the clouds like veins. From within that storm, something moved—huge, distorted, glowing with crimson light. The shape of a man… and a monster.Kael descended slo