Chapter one hundred seventy-two

Tyla POVTyla woke to the sound of rain moving through leaves.Not falling hard—no urgency in it—but steady, deliberate, as though the sky had decided on continuation rather than release. The kind of rain that did not interrupt movement, only altered it.She lay still for a while, listening.The shelter held. The fire had reduced itself to warmth without flame. Morning existed, but it did not insist on being named yet.When she rose, her body responded easily. Muscles remembered yesterday’s distance without complaint. She tightened the strap of her pack, ran her fingers once along the worn edge of its fabric, and stepped outside.Mist hung low among the trees. The path ahead was partially obscured, but not lost. It rarely was.She began to walk.The land here differed from Arthur’s valley—narrower trails, denser growth, ground softened by water and decay. Roots crossed the path like old decisions, forcing attention with every step. Tyla welcomed the demand. It kept her present.By mid

Last Updated : 2026-01-08

Chapter one hundred seventy-three

Arthur POVMorning arrived without a decision.Arthur woke to it already present—light diffused through clouds , the river audible beyond the trees, its voice unchanged. His body registered the day before he moved: the leg stiff, swollen, uncooperative. Pain existed, but it was no longer the sharp kind. It had settled into something denser, structural. A condition rather than a warning.He remained still for several breaths, letting awareness map what movement remained possible.Enough, he decided. Not everything. But enough.The others were already awake. He heard them nearby, quiet but alert, moving with the careful efficiency that came when uncertainty replaced routine. No one spoke to him immediately. They had learned, over the weeks, to wait until presence invited engagement.Arthur sat up slowly, bracing himself with one hand against the ground. The motion cost him more than he expected. He adjusted without comment.They had planned to move today. The ridge ahead still waited. T

Last Updated : 2026-01-08

Chapter one hundred seventy-four

Tyla POVTyla sensed the absence before she understood it.The land still moved as it always had—wind through grass, water shaping stone, birds cutting precise arcs through air—but something in her own rhythm no longer returned the same echo. Steps landed. Balance held. Yet the continuity she had trusted felt thinned, stretched across distance.She stopped on a narrow ridge just after midday.Below her, the valley opened in muted layers, rain-fed streams threading through darker earth. Smoke rose faintly near the western edge—too thin to be a signal, too deliberate to be nothing. Tyla studied it longer than necessary.She had not intended to turn back.Intention, however, had never been the only measure of truth.By late afternoon, she altered her course—not sharply, not dramatically. Just enough to test whether alignment still existed. The land allowed it. The path curved westward with minimal resistance, as though the ground itself recognized the adjustment.She followed.The terrai

Last Updated : 2026-01-08

Chapter one hundred seventy-five

Tyla POVThe path did not change because Arthur was gone.Tyla noticed that first—not as cruelty, but as fact. The ground held its familiar firmness. Stones rested where they always had. The wind moved through the grass with the same indifferent patience. The world had not paused to acknowledge the loss, and it would not.She walked anyway.Morning stretched itself thin across the valley as she descended, light spreading without urgency. Each step landed cleanly. Balance remained intact. Her body remembered how to move even as something within her resisted the ease of it.Grief did not arrive as it collapsed.It arrived as accompaniment.By midday, she reached higher ground where the air cooled and the view widened. The river Arthur had followed was visible in fragments below, catching light in brief, broken flashes. She stopped there, not to rest, but to orient herself—to understand where she stood in relation to what had ended.Arthur had not been a destination.He had directions .

Last Updated : 2026-01-08

Chapter one hundred seventy-six

FinalThe morning did not mark itself as final.That was the first thing Tyla understood when she woke up. There was no sense of conclusion in the light, no weight pressing the air into significance. Dawn arrived as it always had—slowly, without permission, touching the edges of the land before settling fully into being.She lay still for a long time, listening.The world was awake. Birds moved in the trees beyond her camp. Wind traveled low along the ground, disturbing nothing it did not need to. Somewhere far off, water ran over stone, patient and uninterrupted.Arthur was not there.That truth no longer startled her. It no longer arrived like a wound reopening. It existed the way gravity existed—unchangeable, present in every movement she made.She sat up, folded her blanket, and prepared to leave.There was no urgency. No destination waiting to validate her effort. The path ahead curved gently downward, disappearing between rock and scrub. She could follow it. Or she could stop he

Last Updated : 2026-01-08

All Chapters of Craving the alpha soldier : Chapter 171 - Chapter 175

Chapter one hundred seventy-two

Chapter one hundred seventy-three

Chapter one hundred seventy-four

Chapter one hundred seventy-five

Chapter one hundred seventy-six