The Debt of the Unmarked のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 21 - チャプター 30

The fortress was quiet because the castle seemed to throb with danger. Elara had barely slept. All the creaks of the floor and all the sound of the wind in the battlements all seemed like a foreboding. She could still see the bleeding face of her brother who was bruised. Silas had not talked to her since that morning. His cold order stood between them as a wall, firm and solid. She maintained her aloofness, yet the relationship, that she was not meant to have, tugged at her nevertheless, delicate and insistent. She hated that she felt it. That she wanted it. She had caught the eye of a sudden movement. Not the shadows this time. Something alive. Something deliberate. Something had been slipped under her door. She froze, heart hammering. It was raised cautiously by shaking fingers. Dark on white, incisive and clear. Her name scrawled at the top. Only hers. Your choice has begun. "One step wrong, and he dies." Elara’s stomach dropped. Not the usual threats. Even not her

The door banged softly behind Silas with a thud which seemed to be louder than it ought to be.Elara stayed where she was.Her back was stiff. Her hands were still wet with the water she had applied to clean up the blood of Kian, but the odor stuck to her skin. She did not turn around. Had she done so her face would have betrayed her.Silas did not move either.There was a silence between them, it was like a rope that had been pulled to excessive length."I asked you a question" , Silas said.His voice was calm. Too calm.Elara breathed in slowly. “No one was here.”The bond reacted instantly.Not this time with pain but with something sharper. A tremor. A warning.Silas turned his head down a bit, and listened above hearing, above breathing. His fingers twitched one time on his side.“You are lying,” he said.Her heart was beating with a jerk."I am defending you" , she answered, the words slipped out of her before she could recall them.Silas’s jaw clenched. “That excuse again.”Whe

The roar shook the fortress and the rattling of the stone and steel was heard . The chains of Elara shook and she struggled against them in an attempt to stand up. The eyes of Varrek were narrowed, and he studied her attempt to endure as long as a predator. "Do you feel him?" he said, in a soft, venomous voice. She swallowed hard, chest tightening, the bond thrumming violently under her skin. She could feel Silas, she heard every beat of his warning heart throb in her veins. Kael swung forward, personnel glowing dimly, energy humming in the air." Not long will he be kept " , said Kael, with serious low voice. Varrek laughed, a dry and sharp sound that went bouncing back off the walls. "Then you will teach her control… or break her trying.” Elara glanced at the torchlight flashing on the walls of the cell. She tightened her stomach; there was a way, she saw it, if only she moved carefully. I could feel the chains trembling as Silas moved closer and unrelenting. With every

The world reassembled in fragments.First came the dust. It filled Elara’s mouth, nose, and lungs. She coughed violently, her fingers digging into the broken stone below her. Something heavy, yet warm, pressed against her back. “Silas,” she croaked.A low groan came in response. His arm wrapped around her waist. His body curved protectively over hers. Even unconscious, he had not let her go.The corridor was gone. It looked like the bones of a dead creature…cracked beams, fallen pillars, and shattered walls. Smoke curled upward through a jagged opening where the ceiling had been. “Elara.”This time, his voice was clearer, though rough.She twisted carefully under him. “I’m here.” His hand tightened immediately, fingers pressing into her side as if to make sure she was real. He slowly pushed himself up. Blood stained his temple, darker now.“Are you hurt?” he asked. The question made her stop. He used to ask only if she could see; now he was asking about her.“I’m fine,” she said

The forest was too quiet.Moonlight spilled over the clearing, turning every blade of grass silver. Silas stood at the entrance of the broken tunnel, blood soaking through his shirt, with Varrek half-slumped beside him.And they were surrounded.Elara watched through the bond. A circle of wolves stood in human form, their eyes glowing with the same strange silver that had begun to flicker in Silas’s gaze. They weren't blind or sighted. They were something else.Different.At the center stood a woman dressed in white and ash gray. Her long hair was braided down her back, woven with thin strips of metal that caught the moonlight. On her chest rested the crest of the former Luna, the same symbol carved above the Alpha throne.Elara’s breath caught.That crest had burned with Silas’s mate.Silas did not bow. He did not step back. He straightened slowly, one hand gripping Varrek’s collar to keep him upright.“Release him,” the woman said.Her voice was calm, not loud. Yet the wolves around