Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Price Of Fate: Kabanata 331 - Kabanata 340

Nyra’s POVThe maid led Ronan and me through the corridor toward the dining room, and every step made the Emberfall clothes feel more real on my skin. The fabric was soft, much softer than anything I had worn in Vandwood, but it sat on me like a title I had not yet learned how to carry. The cream and gold layers moved around my legs quietly, the black sash at my waist making the whole thing feel too formal, too beautiful, too much like I was supposed to know how to stand, how to speak, how to breathe in a palace where everyone lowered their eyes and called me Your Highness.I did not know how to be that person. I knew how to survive whispers. I knew how to pretend not to hear insults. I knew how to keep my chin up when Beverly smiled like she had a knife behind her teeth. I knew how to fight through fear and hide wounds and love quietly when love had to be protected from the world. But this? Walking through my father’s home dressed like I belonged in it? That was harder in a different

Nyra’s POVDinner went on, though I could feel the old truth still sitting between Tobias and me. He let it rest for now. Instead, he asked about Seraphina. “When did she first speak to you?” Tobias asked. I almost smiled. “That is difficult to answer,” I admitted. “At first, I did not know what she was. I thought something was wrong with me.” Tobias’s expression shifted, pain entering quickly. I softened my voice before his anger could rise again. “She was quiet for a long time,” I continued. “Then not so quiet.”Ronan made a low sound that was almost a laugh. “Not so quiet is generous,” Ronan muttered. I turned to him. “She can hear you,” I warned. “Good,” Ronan replied. “She knows I am right.” Seraphina sniffed inside me. ‘The wolf grows bold because Father accepted him,’ Seraphina said. I pressed my lips together. Tobias noticed. “What did she say?” Tobias asked. My face warmed. “Nothing important,” I answered. Ronan smiled. “That means it was absolutely important,” Ronan said. “S

Nyra’s POVThe golden scale’s warmth still echoed somewhere inside me. Aurelion’s presence had not fully left. It sat deep in my blood now, not as a voice exactly, not the way Seraphina was. More like a distant warmth. A recognition. A path that had been opened and would not close again. Seraphina stirred. Then, without warning, gold spilled from my skin. I gasped. It did not hurt. It rushed out of me like laughter turned into light.Golden brightness unfurled from my shoulders, my chest, the base of my spine, and curved into the air before me. The light gathered, shaped, and lifted, forming wings first, then a long neck, a proud head, ridged horns, a gleaming body made of phantom gold. Seraphina projected fully above the rooftop, still connected to me by a living tether of golden light that pulsed from my chest to hers.She was beautiful. I knew that already. I had seen her in the meadow, felt her in battle, in fear, in fire. But here, over Emberfall’s rooftop, with no enemy before

Ronan’s POVBy the time we were done with the extra meal, I could feel Nyra needing air. Not because the room was suffocating. Emberfall’s dining room was probably the least suffocating place we had been in since crossing the barrier. The air was warm, clean, and scented with roasted meat, spices, fruit, fire, and something floral that came through the open side windows. There were no wraith-touched creatures crawling out of ash. No dead roads. No broken bodies. No barrier wound humming behind us like the world had split open and was deciding whether to bleed more.But Nyra had taken too much into herself. Her father’s scale. His dragon. Aurelion. The connection. The pain that had moved through her before she could brace against it. I had felt pieces of it through our bond, and even those pieces had almost taken my breath. Tobias’s grief had not been quiet. It had been years of rage and longing crushed under a crown, and Nyra had felt enough of it to sit there with tears running down

Ronan’s POVI stared at him. Then laughed. I could not help it. It came out rough and surprised, but it was real. “You saw that already?” I asked. “I have eyes,” my father replied. “And I may have spent twenty-one years in a cursed wasteland, but I did not become stupid. That girl could make a dead wolf stand up and behave if she looked at him the right way.” My laugh deepened. “She might,” I admitted. My father’s eyes warmed. “You look at her like your next breath is resting in her hands,” my father said. My laughter softened into something else. “Sometimes it feels like it is,” I replied.He nodded, and there was no mockery in his face now. “Good,” my father said. I thought of the challenge. Of Keiran. Of Nyra standing in that world with all the people who had doubted her, whispered about her, dismissed her, and still somehow became the force the whole room could not ignore. I thought of Beverly’s smugness. The old anger. The satisfaction. A grin pulled at my mouth. “You should have