The Beta's Forsaken Daughter のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 111 - チャプター 120

Valerie POVThe garden behind the east kitchens was not as I remembered.When I was six, the crooked apple tree had seemed enormous. Now, in the white light of the full moon, it was only an old, bent thing with a hundred twisted branches and a rope swing hanging from the lowest limb. The bench was moss covered. The grass was long. The air smelled like cold stone and damp leaves.I stood at the garden's center in my plain blue cloak, hands folded in front of me, heart hammering so hard I thought it would crack a rib."Ten minutes," Aelion whispered, very faintly, from somewhere above my head.I did not look up. He was lying flat on a thick branch of the apple tree, dressed in dark clothes, with his golden marks hidden under a gray scarf. He had promised me he would not make a sound. He had promised me he would not move until I said his name.Across the yard, behind the kitchen wall, Killian waited with Marcus and twelve of his best men. Isabella was far away in the west tower, with Win

Killian POVI had never been so afraid in my life.Not when my mother died. Not when Darius ran. Not even when I fell off that cliff with Vaelin Frost's claws in my chest. This fear was different. It had nothing to do with swords or fire. It was a thin, cold wire of terror pulled tight between my ribs and the tower, and it hummed with one sound over and over.Isabella."Alpha!" Marcus shouted. "The gates!"I was already running. I had shifted halfway across the garden, and my wolf tore across the grass faster than any man could follow. Behind me, Aelion's soldiers were pouring out of the barracks in red coats, shouting orders. Valerie ran at Aelion's side, her cloak flying, a little glass jar clutched in her fist."The tower!" I roared in my mind, to anyone who could hear. Someone get to the tower!Thane's men are already running, said Marcus, in the pack link. Go! We will hold the wall!I did not slow down. The bond was screaming now. Pain. Cold. A sudden, awful silence where her wol

Isabella POVIt did not hurt the way I expected.It hurt worse.The moonlight pouring through the ceiling did not feel like light at all. It felt like a thousand cold hooks sinking under my skin, in my chest and my wrists and my spine, pulling. Pulling something out of me, gently and steadily, the way you would pull a thread from a seam.I screamed. I could not stop screaming.Somewhere far away, I heard Killian roaring my name. I heard Matilda chanting in a low singsong. I heard Darius sobbing.And inside me, in the silver hallway I had walked so many times, I felt Wren howl.Isabella!The hallway flickered. I was suddenly standing in it, barefoot on the warm stone. The iron door stood open. The chains had fallen away. But across the threshold, coiled around the frame like a snake, was the thin black line, and it was growing.It was not thin anymore. It was thick as my arm. It writhed and tightened, dripping purple light, sinking black roots into the walls and floor. And at its cente

Isabella POV"Hold still," said Clover, through a mouthful of pins."I am holding still.""You are breathing.""People breathe!""Not when I am measuring." She tugged the tape tight around my waist. "There. Done. You are the same size as last month. Which is very rude, considering how much you eat."I laughed. Wren, tucked warm and happy in my chest, said, She is right. We ate three pies yesterday.Two and a half.Rounded up.It was the sixth day after the full moon. The sun was bright, and the palace smelled like fresh bread and sawdust, because Aelion's soldiers and the palace carpenters had been rebuilding the north gate all week. Somewhere downstairs, a very loud argument was going on about napkins."The wedding is in spring," Clover announced, sticking her tape measure in her apron. "That is what the Princess said this morning. On the west balcony. Under the arch.""Of course it is.""Spring! That is five months! I need to make forty dresses.""You do not need to make forty dress

Isabella POVWinifred Aldous did not like the dungeon.She stood in front of the empty cell with her stick tucked under one arm and her free hand pressed against the chalk circle on the wall, as if she were feeling a fever. Her face was gray. She had been standing there for ten minutes, and nobody had dared to speak."Well?" said Killian at last. "Do you know it?""I know it." She drew her hand away and wiped her fingers on her skirt, hard, like she wanted to scrub something off. "I did not think I would see it again in my life.""What is it?""The Eclipse Circle."The name meant nothing to me. But Marcus took half a step back, and two of the guards looked at each other, and I knew from their faces that it meant something to everybody who had grown up in this kingdom."That is a children's story," Marcus said. "My grandmother used it to make me eat my vegetables.""Your grandmother was telling the truth." Winifred turned around. "Come. Not here. This place smells like her."We went up