《The Pretty Prince and the Beast King》全部章節：第 101 章 - 第 110 章

"It's starting."Kaelor didn't look up from the whetstone. The rasp of metal against stone was the only thing keeping the silence from swallowing the room. He ran the iron blade one last time, the edge catching the dying light.Aradaa stood by the window of the safehouse. He gripped the sill until the wood splintered under his nails. Outside, the sky was bruising. A deep, sickly violet bled from the edges of the sun, creeping inward like rot on a piece of fruit. The birds had stopped singing. The wind had a metallic tang, cold and heavy."My skin—Kaelor, look." Aradaa shoved his sleeve up.His veins weren't blue anymore. They were bright, molten silver, pulsing in time with the slow crawl of the moon across the sun. The glow was bright enough to cast shadows against the peeling wallpaper."She’s pulling," Kaelor said. He dropped the whetstone. He walked over, his heavy boots thumping on the floorboards. He grabbed Aradaa’s wrist. Hard. "Don't fight it yet. If you fight it now, you'll

"Look at yourself, Aradaa. Really look."Hecate’s voice didn't come from her mouth. It came from the walls. The floor. The air. I spun around, my boots slipping on a floor that had turned to liquid glass. The throne room was gone. The Sanguine Palace was a smear of gray in the distance. I was standing in a box of mirrors that went on for miles."Where is Kaelor?" My voice cracked. I gripped my stomach. The silver fire in my veins was cold now. Dead cold."He’s exactly where a dog belongs. Outside." Hecate stepped out from a reflection to my left. Then my right. Then behind me. "But you... you’re the centerpiece."I swung my iron sword at the nearest glass panel. The metal shrieked against the surface. No crack. No shatter. Instead, the reflection changed. It wasn't me standing there. It was a boy with my face, but his throat was slit from ear to ear. He slumped against the inside of the glass, his blood painting the surface a dull, dark red."That was the first one," Hecate whispered.

Eat the guards first."Hecate's voice cracked. She stood on the balcony, her fingers digging into the stone railing. Below her, the ballroom was a slaughterhouse.Kaelor—the thing that used to be Kaelor—didn't growl. It didn't roar. The Shadow-Fenris was a silent, shifting void of black fur and white fire. It moved like a glitch in reality. One second it was ten feet away. The next, its jaws were locked around a vampire’s throat.Snap.Amethyst blood sprayed across the white marble. The vampire didn't scream. He simply turned to ash before his body hit the floor."Kill it! Use the silver!" Lord Viktor screamed from the far corner. He waved a rapier, his pale face slick with sweat.Six guards in heavy plate armor lunged. Their silver blades hummed through the air. One caught the beast in the flank. Another pierced its shoulder.The Shadow-Fenris didn't flinch. No red blood leaked from the wounds. Instead, black smoke poured out, thick and oily. The smoke touched the silver blades. The

"I remember the smell of the bread."Vladya stood at the edge of the ritual circle, his sword tip scratching the black floor. The eclipse was a jagged hole in the sky, bleeding purple light onto Hecate’s face. She didn't look back at him. Her hands were submerged in the floating silver sphere of Aradaa’s life force."You remember nothing but the leash I gave you, Vladya." Hecate’s voice was a hum. The siphoning was loud now, like the roar of a furnace. "Get back to the door. Kill anyone who breathes.""I remember the bread," Vladya repeated. He took a step forward. His boots crunched on the ash of fallen guards. "And the way the river sounded before you froze it. I remember my name. It wasn't 'Sentinel.' It was Elias."Hecate’s head snapped toward him. Her silver eyes narrowed. The Dark Shift’s energy—the raw, chaotic surge Kaelor had unleashed—was still vibrating in the air. It had cracked her enchantments. It had cracked Vladya’s mind."Elias is dead. I buried him in the mud seventy

"It’s too much—it’s going to pop!"I gripped the edge of the obsidian altar, my knuckles white against the black stone. The air didn't just vibrate; it hummed with a pitch that made my teeth ache. Above us, the sky wasn't a sky anymore. It was a cracked purple lens, a bruised ceiling of fake night that was finally, mercifully, splintering."Hold it, Aradaa! Don't let go yet!"Kaelor was a few feet away, his chest heaving, his skin slick with sweat and the gray ash of the Queen. He looked like a man who had crawled out of a furnace. His gold eyes were fixed on the swirling silver mass in my hands."I can't—it's burning!"The Muse-energy wasn't just light. It was pressure. It was the collective stolen breath of every girl Hecate had drained for three centuries. It wanted out. It wanted to be anywhere but inside my ribcage."The eclipse is breaking," Kaelor growled. He pointed a shaking finger toward the horizon. "Look. Real light."A jagged line of gold sliced through the violet. It was