Deprived: Queen of the Outcasts のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 11 - チャプター 20

Five years had passed since the Great Sealing of the Abyss. The world was no longer the gray, starving wasteland I had once known. Under the steady light of the Heart of the Abyss, the unified territories had transformed into a lush, sprawling empire of green and silver. The Blackwood Ravine was now the Silver Heart Capital, a city built into the living rock and the ancient trees, where the air hummed with the resonance of a peace hard-won.But sovereignty, I had learned, was not the end of the struggle—it was merely a different kind of war.I sat in the High Council Chamber, the walls of which were grown from the same silver-barked oak as the forest. Before me lay a map of the known world, now vastly expanded. Beyond our borders, the news of our "Infinity Energy" had traveled to the Great Empires across the sea. They didn't see a sanctuary; they saw a battery."The emissaries from the Iron Throne of the West have arrived," Kaelen said, his voice as calm as ever, th

The warning bells didn't ring; they screamed. Across the southern horizon, the sky was no longer the clear, twilight purple of the Ravine. It was choked with thick, oily plumes of black smoke. The Western Empires hadn't waited for the winter to pass. They had brought their own."Steam-dreadnoughts," Jace hissed, his image flickering as he materialized in the war room. He looked shaken, his usual bravado replaced by a grim exhaustion. "Ten of them, Elora. They’ve bypassed the outer reefs by using iron-plated hulls and some kind of alchemical ice-breaker. They aren’t just ships; they’re floating fortresses."I stood over the tactical table, my fingers tracing the glowing ley-lines that Kaelen had mapped across the territory. The Silver Heart was protected by the Aether-Shield, a dome of pure kinetic energy powered by the Abyss Heart. But even the void had its limits."They are hitting the southern cliffs," Kaelen noted, his brow furrowed as he monitored a set of vibrating

The scouts I had left alive crawled back to the Silver Crest borders like broken insects. I watched them through Jace’s eyes, perched invisibly atop the manor’s stone gargoyles. They didn't carry weapons; they carried a contagion of terror. Grin, once the Pack’s most feared enforcer, had to be carried into the Great Hall on a stretcher, his skin gray and his heartbeat stuttering from the lingering effects of Kaelen’s paralyzing toxins. Inside the manor, the air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and desperation. The "Royal" scent of the Alpha, which used to command instant obedience, now smelled like rotting cedar. "She... she is not the girl we knew," Grin wheezed, his voice echoing in the silent, freezing hall. "She has shadows for soldiers and the forest itself as her blade. Fenris... she isn't just surviving. She is ruling." Fenris didn't respond. He stood by the frosted window, his gaze fixed on the Blackwood Ravine. He l

The journey to the Tundra Graves was a march into a world of white silence. As we pushed north, the vibrant life of the Silver Heart was replaced by a landscape so cold it felt brittle, as if the air itself might shatter if we spoke too loudly. The ground was no longer earth; it was a thousand feet of permafrost, housing the remains of every Alpha since the dawn of the Great Shift."The ley-lines are screaming," Kaelen muttered, his breath blooming in thick clouds of steam. He held a brass compass that spun erratically, the needle vibrating with a violent, violet energy. "Silas has already tapped into the intersection. He’s draining the residual power from the graves to keep his rift open."Thane walked at the front of our small group, his massive shadow-steel blade strapped to his back. His wolf was restless; I could see the hackles of his shadow-spirit rising and falling beneath his skin. He didn't like this place. No wolf did. To us, the Tundra Graves were a place of

Twenty years had passed since the snows of the Tundra Graves had settled over the ghost of Silas. The world had not forgotten the "Nothing Queen," but the legends had softened, turning the terrifying tales of the Deprivation into a foundation of a new era.The Silver Heart Capital was no longer a hidden fortress in a ravine. It had grown into a sprawling, vibrant city where the walls were made of living vines and the lanterns were fueled by the gentle, stabilized glow of Aether-crystals. There were no Alphas here. There were only The Kin.I stood on the balcony of the Great Hall, a cup of warm tea in my hands. My hair had begun to show streaks of true silver, not from magic, but from time. The silver scar on my arm had faded into a thin, shimmering line, a quiet map of a war that felt like a lifetime ago."The southern harvest is record-breaking this year," Kaelen said, stepping out onto the balcony. He wore the spectacles of a Master Scholar now, and his hands, tho