Semua Bab Ashbound Moon : Bab 21 - Bab 30

CHAPTER 21 The seam snapped shut like jaws.Mara’s hand disappeared with it.For one heartbeat, there was absolute silence.Then the tunnel shook with a violent, furious impact—like Mara had slammed her body against the other side of the stone.The rock held.Barely.Dax pressed his forehead to mine for a split second, breath harsh. “You did the right thing,” he rasped, but his eyes were haunted—because he wasn’t sure he believed it.I couldn’t breathe.“Vesper,” I whispered.No answer.Only stone, and the dull thud of rage behind it.Then Kieran’s howl cut through the sealed rock anyway—muffled but present—followed by that deeper roar from the bloodscent corridor.The first door.Still open.Still calling.My mother.The tunnel we’d fallen into was tighter than the last, carved with old runes that didn’t glow until my mark pulsed.

CHAPTER 23 The new seam didn’t open like stone.It opened like the world remembered it could tear.Rune-light crawled across the rock behind us, sketching a door in lines that looked like veins. The air cooled fast, turning sharp and sterile—cage-cold. My wrist mark throbbed in rhythm with the runes, like my blood was feeding the shape.Dax pulled me back a step, putting his body between me and the forming seam. “Don’t look at it too long,” he warned, voice tight. “Some doors learn your face.”I swallowed hard, chest heaving. “It’s building itself.”“Because you closed the first seam,” Dax said. “And it doesn’t like being refused.”The mate bond thread in my ribs twanged again—hard. I winced, grabbing my chest like I could hold it still. The pull wasn’t toward the door behind us. It was sideways—through the walls—like something was circling, searching for the shortest route back to me.I heard it again: not my

CHAPTER 25 “Aria… help me.”My mother’s voice slid out of the dark beyond the bone-white door—soft, breaking, familiar enough to make my knees go weak. The chamber’s chains rattled like they agreed with her, like they’d been waiting for me to step forward and finish what the runes had started.Dax’s boots scraped stone as the circle pulled him another inch. His jaw was clenched hard enough to shake. He fought like a wolf caught in a snare—silent, furious, refusing to beg.“Don’t move,” he warned me through his teeth, eyes flashing gold. “That’s not her. Not all of her.”Kieran—coal-bright eyes in a face I used to know—tilted his head as if listening to a song. “But it is her voice,” he murmured, almost tender. “And you always listen to her.”The mate bond yanked hard, barbed and impatient, trying to drag my ribs toward Kieran and my feet toward the bone door at the same time. Two chains. Two directions. Both violent.Th

CHAPTER 27 My mother’s scream ripped through the threshold like claws.The chains around her jerked tighter, lifting her shoulders painfully, forcing a strangled sound out of her throat. Blood spilled faster into the bowl beneath her, turning the black water thick and glossy.“No!” I lunged forward—Dax’s hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.But Dax’s hand wasn’t steady anymore.His grip was too calm. Too certain.The voice that came out of him didn’t match the tremor in his muscles. “Step in,” it repeated softly, patient as a noose. “The cage punishes delay.”I yanked my arm back, shaking. “Dax—fight it.”His gold eyes flickered—one heartbeat of him returning—then dimmed into something colder.The Hollow King watched the flicker with satisfaction. “He’s hearing me,” he murmured. “The law remembers its warden.”Warden.The word landed heavy.I swallowed hard, staring

CHAPTER 29 The chain didn’t catch my wrist.It caught Dax.He moved without thinking—stepping between me and the snap of rune-glow—and the chain wrapped his forearm once, twice, tightening like it recognized him more than it recognized me.Dax grunted, teeth bared.The wrong voice in him went quiet.His gold eyes widened—real, startled.“Aria,” he rasped. “That—shouldn’t—”The chain flared.Rune-light surged up his arm like fire in veins.Dax’s head snapped up, eyes blazing, then darkening at the edges like something tried to climb inside.The Hollow King exhaled like he’d been waiting for that exact moment. “There,” he murmured. “The warden remembers his collar.”My copy smiled, pleased. “Good,” she said. “Now he can pull you in properly.”My stomach dropped.The mate bond to Kieran yanked hard. Kieran’s coal-bright gaze glittered with hunger. “Come,” he wh