Lahat ng Kabanata ng MARKED BY FATE: THE ALPHA PRINCE'S REGRET: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

"Assuming Wren's right," Rhys said, once the initial weight of the idea had settled enough for practical planning to begin, "we still need to find Serrin before we can offer her anything at all. And the last time any of us saw her, she was retreating wounded into unfamiliar territory with every reason to avoid being found.""She'll have gone somewhere she trusts," Corvin said. "Somewhere with meaning to her, not just tactical advantage. Everything she's done since the ceremony has carried an emotional weight beneath the strategy the sealed site, the ancestral estate, even the letters she's sent. She wants to be understood, even while insisting she doesn't.""The Draveth territory's main holdings," Kaelan said slowly. "Not the ancestral seat that's gone now, collapsed. But there's a secondary estate, smaller, more private. I remember hearing my father's advisors mention it once, dismissively, as the place Serrin apparently retreated to as a child whenever court politics grew too viciou

"She's still breathing," Corvin said sharply, fingers pressed against Serrin's throat, urgency cutting through his own pain. "Barely. But breathing.""That's not enough," Ivy said, hands still pressed hard against the wound, blood slick and warm against her palms despite everything she was doing to stem it. "We need to get her somewhere with real healers, now, before""There's a healer's cottage two miles south," Serrin's voice, barely audible, cut through the panic. Her eyes had cracked open again, fever-bright but present. "Old woman. Doesn't ask questions about who shows up bleeding at her door. I used to." A pained, fractured breath. "I used to go there as a child, when court politics got too vicious even for me.""You can direct us there," Kaelan said, already working to fashion a makeshift stretcher from broken branches and torn cloth. "That's good. That means you're staying conscious long enough to actually make it."Every step toward the cottage felt endless. Serrin's breaths

The capital in daylight was nothing like the city they'd raced through weeks ago. It was bigger, colder, every banner snapping in the wind, every gold rooftop shining like a warning. Ivy felt the weight of all that power pressing down on them as they neared the palace gates."No word from Bianca's contacts," Kaelan said quietly, scanning the crowd gathering for the session with visible tension. "We're going in without the captain's testimony.""Then we work with what we have," Ivy said, forcing steadiness into her voice despite the fear coiling tight in her chest. "Serrin's testimony. Wren's presence. Whatever credibility any of that carries."The council chamber swallowed Ivy whole. It was a massive, circular hall, tiered seats rising all around, packed with pack representatives and minor nobles. King Aldric sat at the center on a raised dais, his advisors flanking him, their faces shifting from grim to openly hostile the second Ivy and her friends stepped inside.Murmurs swept throu

The council gave them three days. Three days before anyone talked about succession, Aldric’s charges, or what Serrin would have to answer for.Ivy slept through the first day. Weeks of exhaustion crashed down on her the second the adrenaline faded. She woke up late, sunlight already spilling through the window of the council’s guest room, and for a moment, she didn’t know where she was. The quiet was almost too much.No bells. No pounding on the door. No letters with strange seals, ready to ruin everything all over again.Just quiet.Kaelan was on the balcony, staring out over the rooftops. His face was different none of the court’s careful mask, none of the wild desperation from before. He looked calm. Unsure, but calm."Couldn't sleep?" she asked, joining him at the railing."I slept," he said. "Woke up an hour ago and couldn't stop thinking." He glanced at her, something vulnerable flickering behind his exhausted eyes. "About all of it. The ceremony that started this. Everything si

Bianca's contacts came through again, just like before. It only took a day for the rumours to start someone had seen a girl who looked like Elara. Not in some grand Draveth estate, but tucked away in a plain, forgettable waystation near the northern border. The kind of place where people and secrets disappeared without a trace."It's likely a skeleton crew now," Kaelan said, studying the layout Bianca's contact had sketched from memory. "Ambrose's network collapsed with his capture. Whoever's left holding her probably doesn't have clear orders anymore, which could work in our favor or make them considerably more dangerous, depending on how desperate they've become.""Then we move carefully," Rhys said, "and fast, before desperation turns into something worse for whoever's actually guarding her."They reached the waystation as dusk settled in. Mira refused to stay behind, even with the tension crackling between her and Rhys. Nothing mattered more than seeing her granddaughter safe not