Lahat ng Kabanata ng BARBARIAN: The Mad Alpha Is My Mate.: Kabanata 131 - Kabanata 140

They left before the sun rose, while the sky still held that thin gray light that made everything look unfinished.Nobody spoke much as they broke camp. There wasn't much left to say that the crimson beam on the horizon hadn't already said for them the night before. Alvar rolled his bedding and watched Caierre do the same a short distance off, movements careful, economical, like he was conserving something he didn't have much left of.The old man gathered them before they set out, staff planted in the dirt, face still carrying the pale, shaken look it had worn since the second seal broke."Four seals remain," he said. "Scattered across the continent, in places even I only know from fragments of old records. Whoever—or whatever—is hunting them clearly knows exactly where to look. We do not have that luxury. Every hour we spend uncertain of our path is an hour we hand to something that already knows precisely where it's going.""So where do we start?" Morwen asked."I have theories," th

Caierre didn't lower his blade. The man's stillness, kneeling there with his hood catching the last thin light, felt too deliberate to trust outright, no matter how gentle his voice had sounded a moment ago."That's not possible," he said. "Vaelor fell centuries ago. No human lives that long. No wolf either, curse or no curse.""I never claimed to be that old," the man said, still kneeling, patient in a way that unsettled Caierre almost as much as the claim itself. "My name is Rowan. Last of the Guardians of Vaelor—a title you've never heard, because my family made certain it stayed buried along with everything else this continent chose to forget.""Guardian of what?""Of you," Rowan said simply. "Or whoever you would eventually become. My bloodline was entrusted, generations ago, with protecting the royal line until the rightful heir finally returned to claim what was left behind. That duty passed from Guardian to Guardian, father to son, down a line that never once stopped believing

The tunnel stretched on longer than Caierre had expected, its walls lined with carvings that grew more intricate the deeper they walked—not the sprawling murals of Vaelor's buried streets, but something tighter, more deliberate, symbols repeated in careful patterns that felt less like art and more like instruction.Rowan trailed his fingers along one wall as they passed, something almost reverent in the gesture. "These passages were built by my ancestors after Vaelor fell," he said, quiet, torchlight throwing long shadows across his face. "Guardian after Guardian, generation after generation, connecting hidden sanctuaries across the continent so the royal bloodline would always have somewhere to flee if the kingdom was ever lost a second time. We built for centuries we never expected to need. It seems we were right to.""How many of these sanctuaries are there?" Morwen asked."Five, that I know of," Rowan said. "Perhaps more that even my family lost track of over the years. This is th

The sanctuary held its stunned silence like a held breath, nobody moving, nobody speaking, every eye fixed on the man standing at its center as though looking away might let the impossible slip further out of reach.Caierre stared at him and tried, desperately, to reconcile the face in front of him with the memory still raw behind his own eyes—the king kneeling at the ritual's edge, silver light consuming him whole, a sacrifice given freely so a kingdom's survivors could carry on without him. The silver eyes matched. The crest matched. Even the quiet, unshakeable authority in his voice matched exactly what Caierre had witnessed in the trial, down to the last careful inflection."It can't be," Rowan said, voice barely above a whisper, his hand trembling faintly at his side. "I know the histories my family guarded better than anyone alive. I watched the last king die, generations before I was ever born, through every record passed down to me. He gave his life to seal the corruption. The

The guardians closed the last gap without haste, their heavy footsteps shaking the ground with every stride. Six of them in total, Caierre counted, each standing twice the height of the tallest among them, crimson light pulsing steady through the cracks webbing their crystal bodies, ancient runes glowing faint along armor that looked carved rather than built. Grant stepped in front of the group first, silver sword raised despite the obvious futility of it. "No one gets past us." The lead guardian lowered its massive head toward him. "This is not your trial." It swung before Grant could answer, a stone fist crashing into him with enough force to send him flying clear across the pass. He struck the cliffside hard enough to crack the rock behind him, then slid down into a crumpled heap at its base. "Grant!" Morwen's voice tore through the chaos, and she was already moving, sword drawn, the rest of the group surging forward on instinct despite every warning screaming that steel alone