جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 140

Bella’s POV“Pack it up. Now.”Thor didn’t wait for me to argue. He was already sweeping the documents back into the box, careless of the fragile paper in a way that told me exactly how much danger he thought we were actually in.My hands moved on instinct, tucking the pendant deep into my jacket pocket, my mind still half caught on my mother’s name even as every other part of me scrambled to catch up with the danger closing in around us.Footsteps on the level above. More than one set this time. Fast, purposeful, nothing like the archivist’s unhurried rounds from before.I said to them "They might not know it is us " and I put the pendant into my jacket pocket. The metal was cold through the fabric. My mind was still thinking about everything the documents had told me. My mothers name was circled in ink. It was a part of a history I had never been allowed to know.. My body was focused on getting out of this room alive.Thors voice was very quiet. "It does not matter who they think it

Draven’s POV"Release him."I said it before I even thought about it and every elder in the room turned to look at me like I was speaking a language they did not understand.Ronan was still on his knees he had not moved since the guards brought him in. I looked at the back of his head trying to make sense of the man kneeling there all bloody and quiet. It was hard to match this Ronan with all the versions of him I had disliked over the years. It was not easy to do.The presiding elder spoke up her voice was all business now. "He came into our land without permission he said he was a traitor to his father and you want to let him go." She sounded surprised. "That is not like you Draven for you."I kept looking at Ronan he was still bloody, kneeling still watching me like he thought I would say no. "He is not the problem he is the only one who told us the truth tonight." I said. "Whatever he did to Bella in the past that is between them. Tonight he came into a room where we could have ki

Bella’s POV“Again.”Frey did not wait for me to catch my breath before calling it which was why I had asked him to run this drill instead of anyone else. I mean anyone gentler would not have pushed me hard as I needed to be pushed.I reset my stance my boots planted wide on the garage floor that Thor had cleared for training the moment we found out that the tournament had moved up. We had three days. Three days to relearn everything my body had forgotten how to do since the crash. Three days to turn this understanding of my own bloodline into something useful instead of just scary. My side still hurt where the old wound had not fully healed a reminder with every twist and pivot that my body had not caught up to what I was demanding of it.Frey said, " this time." He was already circling around me. "Whoever is really behind this tournament is not going to care that you are still healing.”I came at Frey low the way Gordon had taught me weeks ago. He sidestepped easily tapping my shoul

Bella’a POV “They can’t force me to stand there.” “They can, and they will, and refusing forfeits the territory faster than losing the race itself would.” Draven’s voice stayed level, but I felt the tension underneath it, the same coiled stillness I’d learned to recognize as him working a problem too fast for words to keep up with. “This isn’t a rule we can argue around. It’s a rule built specifically to close the exact door we were planning to use.” I walked back and forth in the room my body still feeling the leftover excitement from the news the runner brought. I could not sit down because I was too excited. Every plan we made in the three days was based on the idea that I could move around without being seen.. Now that was not possible because of a new rule. Then Ronan said "We will find another way in." Ronan had already spread out a map he drew by hand on the table. He used a water bottle, a wrench and his own hands to hold it down. His wrists were still a little bruised fr

Bella’s POVI didn’t remember crossing the compound. One moment I was standing in the training yard, the next I was shoving through the guest quarters door, and the space between those two moments simply didn’t exist anymore.Draven was on the floor.Thor knelt beside him, one hand pressed hard against Draven’s side, dark blood already soaking through his fingers, and Draven’s face had gone the particular gray that meant his body was losing a fight his will hadn’t caught up to conceding yet. The room smelled of copper and something sharper underneath it, bitter and green, a scent I recognized without wanting to.“What happened.” My voice didn’t sound like mine.“Poison dart. Through the window.” Thor’s jaw was tight, controlled, the way it always went right before he stopped having room for anything but the immediate problem.“Whoever it was, they’re gone. I checked the second I heard him fall.”I dropped to my knees on Draven’s other side, hands hovering, useless, every instinct in me