Semua Bab The Billionaire who bought my curse : Bab 1 - Bab 5

The Hollow District never truly slept. Even at midnight, the streets breathed. Not with peace, but with hunger. Blue fire lanterns swung above crooked alleyways, their flames hissing against the cold mist crawling up from the canal. Magic sellers shouted over one another from crowded stalls. A woman with silver eyes sold bottled dreams beside a boy hawking cursed lockets that pulsed like tiny hearts. Somewhere deeper in the maze of stone and shadow, something growled from beneath a sewer grate. Lyra Noctis pulled her hood lower and adjusted the velvet cloth over her little round table. Her stall was laughable compared to the others. A cracked crystal orb. Three moon cards. A brass candleholder with only one candle left. Still, people came. Because even in a city like Velmora, where floating palaces glittered above the clouds, fear made fools of everyone. And fear paid. “Tell me if my husband is cheating.” The woman across from her smelled of expensive rose oil and o

The mirrors would not stop whispering. Even after Cassian led Lyra out of the chamber, their voices seemed to follow her up the spiral stairs like cold fingers trailing the back of her neck. Choose the billionaire… or bury the city. The words looped in her mind until they no longer sounded like a warning. They sounded like a sentence. By the time they returned to her room, dawn had begun to bruise the sky beyond the tower windows. Velmora stretched below in silver mist and scattered lights, the canals glowing faintly blue as the city dragged itself toward morning. Lyra stopped near the fireplace and turned sharply. “What did you mean when you said the crystal belonged to my bloodline?” Cassian remained by the door, one hand resting on the frame as though he expected her to bolt. “Exactly what I said.” “Don’t do that.” Her voice came out sharper than intended. “Don’t speak in those cold little fragments and expect me to stitch the truth together myself.” For a m

For a heartbeat, nobody moved. The blood moon hung overhead like an open wound. Lyra could still feel the burn of the new crescent mark in her palm, hot and alive, as Adrian’s words settled into the chamber. She is. The one fated to die. The one the prophecy had been circling all along. Cassian stepped in front of her so quickly she barely saw him move. His body became a wall between her and Adrian, shoulders rigid, voice low enough to cut stone. “You used us.” Adrian’s smile deepened. “I guided events toward their natural conclusion.” “By opening the wards. By sending assassins. By nearly destroying the city?” “The city was always collateral.” Adrian spread his hands almost lazily. “The Heart only wakes for true Veyra blood bound to a shadow heir. You gave us both.” Us. The word made Lyra’s gaze snap toward the silver-eyed woman beside him. Her cousin stood half in shadow, expression unreadable. Not hatred. Something worse. Conviction. Cassian’s