Lahat ng Kabanata ng Shadow Of Noctis: In The Cruel Prince’s Grasp: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

ZadeThe candles had burned down to their stubs, and deep black shadows had settled in the corners of the room. After I treated Eira’s wounds, a ghostly calm fell over us, the kind of silence that exists in the eye of a storm.I knew she needed rest.Tomorrow, we would step into the wolves’ den, and she would need every bit of strength she had.I made the small guest bed for her myself, the one I had ordered brought into my room on the first day. I did not want her far from me, but I respected her boundaries. I laid her down, covered her, and waited until her lashes grew heavy.I lay in my own large bed, but sleep avoided me.I only stared into the darkness, watching the ceiling and listening to her uneven breathing. Noctis shifted restlessly inside my mind, sensing the tension buried beneath my skin.Hours must have passed when a sharp, muffled sound broke the silence.“No… please, no…” Eira whispered.

EiraThe air was so sharp and cold it felt like it was slicing through my lungs.I had never breathed anything so wonderful.We were outside.There were no walls trying to crush me.No stench of mold.No suffocating darkness.Only the endless blue of the dawn sky stretching above us and the wind weaving through my hair.Zade still held me in his arms beside one of the stone benches in the upper gardens.I buried my face against his neck as my tears soaked into his skin, breathing in the scent of pine and approaching rain as though it were the only source of oxygen left in the world.My body still trembled uncontrollably.The bruises left by the shackles throbbed around my wrists, while the fresh cuts across my shoulders and back burned with every tiny movement.But the physical pain was nothing compared to the raw, instinctive terror that had swallowed me in the dungeon.

ZadeI stood in the center of the throne room and felt the air freeze in my lungs.Eira’s words cut through the hall like lightning. For one moment, even my own rage was pushed aside by awe. This girl, whom I had pulled from the dungeons only hours ago, had now forced the most powerful people in the empire to their knees with nothing but the truth.I was the heir to the throne. The firstborn. The lord of armies. The man who would one day take my father’s place. I had always known that power did not live in the crown, but in the person who could command the moment.And Eira commanded it now.My father, the King, slowly leaned forward on his throne. Defeat hid in the deep lines of his face. He looked at me, then at the girl standing in a bloodstained nightgown, and finally turned his gaze to Caspian.My younger brother, the prince who had always hidden behind rules, now looked like a cornered rat.“Enough!” my father thund

ZadeThe palace corridors blurred into one endless tunnel around me.I didn’t see the ornate tapestries or the suits of armor lining the walls. There was only one destination in my mind.My chambers.The girl resting in my arms felt weightless, as though her soul had already begun slipping away from her body. Her head rocked limply against my chest with every step I took. Her white hair spilled over my arm like fine silk, but the drops of blood falling from her torn nightgown onto the stone floor were cruelly real.“Hold on, Eira,” I whispered into her ear as I crossed the eastern wing. My voice was hoarse with panic, an emotion I had denied myself for years. “Do you hear me? You can’t give up. Not now.”Noctis growled constantly inside my mind.My dragon’s fury and desperation pounded against my temples like hammer blows. Outside, dark clouds gathered above the palace courtyard, as though even the sky sensed death and m

EiraThree days after I collapsed onto the cold marble floor of the throne room, the sharp pulse of pain had softened into a dull, constant ache. The stitches across my back itched relentlessly, while the bruises around my throat had faded into shades of yellow and green.My body was healing.Slowly.Stubbornly.That morning, the palace’s elderly healer came for another examination. After carefully inspecting my injuries, he looked at me, then at Zade, who, as always, observed every movement from his armchair.“The wounds are closing nicely,” the old man said. “But the girl needs a bath. The blood, sweat, and filth from the dungeon will cause an infection if they remain on her skin any longer. I’ll have a hot herbal bath prepared. It will help relax her muscles as well.”As soon as the healer left, two maids entered to help me into the bathing room.My stomach immediately twisted.I hated feeling helple