The Obsidian Covenant #1: The Rejected Mate's Ruin のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 71 - チャプター 80

POV: BarzilA cornered animal bites. A cornered army burns the forest.I stared at the holographic map floating above the briefing table. The Undercroft Refugee Sector was lit up in angry, pulsing red. Fifty-two thermal signatures huddled in the main ventilation hub. Surrounding them were twenty hostiles.And surrounding them were three battalions of Onyx Guard, waiting for the order to turn the entire sector into a tomb."Play it again," I commanded. My voice grated against the silence of the room. Gravel and rust.Wolfy tapped a key. Click. The audio recording crackled to life. Distorted by the pirate signal but unmistakable in its malice."You have twelve hours, Commander. Send the Asset to the Foundry Gate. Alone. Unarmed. Or the Nulls die. One every hour."A scream punctuated the message—a woman's terrified cry that cut straight to the bone—before the feed cut to static. Krrshhh.I gripped the edge of the table. The metal groaned under my hands. Warping.Kaine Solstice. The boy w

POV: NeomaThere is no neutral ground on a knife's edge. You either fall to one side, or you are split in two.For my entire life, I had tried to balance on that blade. I had tried to be a survivor in the Dregs without becoming a savage. I had tried to be a Tether in the Citadel without becoming a slave. I thought I could love my brother and protect my Pack.But as the glass rained down around us and the Vanguard landed like gods of war in the center of the Foundry, the knife finally cut me.Slice."Kill them!" Kaine screamed. His voice cracked with hysteria. "Kill the hostages! Leave them nothing but corpses!"The rebels surrounding the huddled Nulls hesitated for a split second—awed by the arrival of the Iron Warden—but the order was absolute. They raised their rifles. Click-clack. Barzil-tipped rounds aimed at the heads of fifty innocent people.Barzil and Viggo were too far away. They were engaged with the outer ring of Kaine's guards. They couldn't reach the center in time.But I

POV: NeomaGrief was a different kind of void. It took will.The Void inside me—the hunger that ate magic and life—was a passive thing. It was a drain at the bottom of a sink, swirling endlessly. But grief? Grief was active. It required energy to get out of bed. It required effort to chew food. It required a conscious decision to keep breathing when the air felt like sludge. Every inhalation was a chore.A week had passed since the Foundry.I moved through the days like a ghost haunting my own body. Wake up. Eat the nutrient paste. Slurp. Train until my muscles failed. Shower. Sleep. Repeat.Barzil tried to fix it the only way he knew how: with orders."Stance, Neoma!" he would bark in the training room. Correcting my posture with a snap of his wrist. "You are drifting. Focus.""Yes, Commander," I would say. My voice flat. Hollow."Put some fire in it!"I would try. I would throw the punch. Thud. But there was no fire. The rage that usually fueled me—the Dregs survival instinct—was go

POV: BarzilWork was the only cure for a mind that ate itself.I had seen it in veterans returning from the Borderlands—men who had seen too much death and tried to drown it in silence or liquor. Those men withered. The ones who survived were the ones who picked up a hammer, a shovel, or a rifle and gave their hands something to do.Neoma was withering.Viggo’s softness had stopped the bleeding of her soul, but it hadn't closed the wound. She needed purpose. She needed to remember that she could shape the world, not just endure it."Sector 9 Perimeter," I ordered. Handing her a datapad. "Walk the line. Check the sensor arrays. Log any anomalies."We stood at the base of the Academy’s outer wall—a massive fortification of grey stone and iron rising fifty feet into the smoggy sky. The wind here was biting. Carrying the grit of the distant Wasteland. It scoured my skin.Neoma took the pad. She looked small in her nanoweave suit. The wind whipped her silver hair around her face. "You want

POV: BarzilHe had spent a lifetime following rules. He was about to break the biggest one.Protocol 7, Clause 4: Physical intimacy between Command Staff and Assigned Assets is strictly prohibited. Violation results in immediate court-martial and reassignment.The words flashed in my mind like a warning beacon on a HUD. Blinking red. Sensible words. Logical words. Words designed to keep the chain of command intact and the mission clear.But looking down at Neoma, pressed against the training room wall, her chest heaving against mine, her violet eyes dilated with a hunger that matched my own... the words dissolved into static. Bzzzt.Logic didn't live here. Not in this space between breaths. Not in the heat radiating from her skin."Neoma," I whispered again. Testing the weight of her name on my tongue. It tasted like ash and promise.She didn't back down. She didn't look away. Her hands were still gripping my collar. Pulling me down. Anchoring me to her storm."Do it," she dared me. H