The Beta's Forsaken Daughter のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 121 - チャプター 130

Killian POV"No," I said."You have not heard what I am going to say," said Isabella."I do not need to. You are going to say you want to go north.""I want to go north.""No."We were in the war room, the two of us and Marcus, with the great map spread across the table and a cold pot of tea that nobody had touched. It was late in the evening. We had been arguing for an hour, in low voices, because Marcus kept glancing at the door."Killian." Isabella put both hands flat on the table. She was wearing one of my old shirts and her hair was twisted up in a rough knot, and she looked small and tired and utterly immovable. "The letter says bring the girl. If I stay here, he will find another way to come for me. If I go, we choose the ground.""That is exactly what he wants.""Then he gets what he wants and a surprise.""Isabella.""Do not use that voice.""What voice?""The Alpha voice. The one that says the conversation is over." She folded her arms. "I do not take orders from it."Marcus

Isabella POVEdmund Pryce looked smaller in the dungeon than he had in the moon chamber.He sat on the edge of his cot in a gray shift, with his bandaged arm resting in his lap and his gray eyes fixed on the floor. They had cut his hair. Without the neat black clothes and the cold courtesy, he looked about nineteen. He looked like the boy Aelion had described, a junior archivist who liked paperwork.“You can lift your head,” said the Queen of the Sunlit Realm. “I am not going to strike you.”“I would understand if you did, Your Majesty.”“I know you would. That is why I will not.”She stood in front of his cell with her hands folded, and Aelion stood at her right shoulder. Killian and I were on her left. Thane leaned against the wall behind us, like a very large and very angry piece of furniture.Edmund lifted his head slowly. His eyes went to the Queen’s face. Then, for the first time, he looked at me.“Your Majesty,” he said. “Queen Isabella. I owe you an apology that I cannot make

Isabella POV The hawk came on the ninth morning.It was a lean gray bird with a torn left wing, and it landed on my windowsill while I was brushing my hair. It looked at me with a furious yellow eye and held out one leg, to which was tied a tiny roll of oilskin.I knew the handwriting before I unrolled it. It was small, angular and impatient, like the person who wrote it.Border. Dusk. Come alone or bring an army, I do not care. I have news. M.I read it three times. Then I put the paper down on the dressing table, covered my face with both hands and let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.Who is it? said Wren.Someone I left in the dark, I said. A year ago. At a gate.A friend?The only one I had.* * *I did not go alone, because Killian would not have survived it. I took Marcus and four guards, and we rode to the northern border post as the sun went down behind the mountains. The sky turned the color of a bruise. Frost crunched under our horses’ hooves.At t

Killian POVThe carriage from the Eclipse Pack arrived at noon on the eleventh day.I knew who was in it before the door opened. Isabella did too. She was standing next to me on the front steps in her plain gray coat, with her hands folded very still in front of her, and I could feel her heartbeat through the bond like a small bird beating against a window.“You do not have to see him,” I said, quietly.“I know.”“I can send him away.”“I know that too.” She did not look at me. “I want to hear what he says.”The door opened. A man climbed down, slowly. He was in his fifties, with gray at his temples and a stooped back. His clothes were clean but old. He leaned on a cane that I did not think he needed. His face was lined and tired, and there was something in the shape of his jaw that was so like Isabella’s that my chest tightened.He saw her. He stopped.“Isabella,” he said.“Father.”They stood there, thirty feet apart, with the cold wind between them. Neither moved.“May I come close

Valerie POV They left at dawn.I stood on the front steps in a heavy wool cloak, with Miranda clinging to my arm on one side and Queen Corisande standing like a statue on the other, and watched the army march out of the palace gates. Four hundred wolves in dark coats. Three hundred Sunlit riders in red and gold. Forty wolves from the Eclipse Pack, in plain brown, walking at the back with their heads high.Killian rode at the front on a black horse, with Isabella beside him on a smaller white mare. Marcus came behind with the banners. Darius rode next to Marcus, wrapped in his gray coat, sitting stiffly in the saddle. Aelion was at the head of his own riders, silver hair bright in the morning light, and when he passed the steps, he looked up and found my face and put his hand over his heart.My own heart turned over.“Do not cry,” said Miranda, sniffling. “It makes me cry.”“I am not crying.”“You are.”“I have something in my eye.”“Then it is a very wet something.”I laughed shakil