جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 38

*Aria's POV* Something felt different about the moon tonight. It rose slowly above the trees, and I found myself watching it longer than I meant to. Every minute that passed seemed to settle deeper in my chest, as if my body knew something was coming before I did. Voss led us to the centre of the clearing himself, past the fire and onto the open grass. Once the moon cleared the treeline, nothing would block its light. Behind us, the crowd had fallen quiet. The Wardens stood in a loose circle around the clearing, close enough to watch but far enough away from whatever was about to happen. I picked Maya and Damien out near the front of it, Coach Reeves a step behind them, all three watching with the same tight, careful stillness. "Face each other," Voss said. "Nothing more complicated than that." Kael turned to face me. His eyes met mine, and he held my gaze for a moment. I was still nervous about what was about to happen, but having him beside me made it easier to breathe. "Whate

*Aria's POV* I woke up in a narrow stone room I didn't recognize until the last few hours came back to me all at once, the fire, the moon, the collapse, Kael's arms catching me before I hit the ground. He was asleep in a chair pulled close to the bed, still in his jacket, his hand resting near mine on the blanket like he hadn't quite let go even in sleep. I sat up slowly, testing the strange banked heat still sitting low in my chest. Still there. Still quiet. The door opened without a knock. A woman I hadn't seen before stepped in, younger than Voss, carrying a leather case that made my stomach drop the second I saw it. "Miss Bennett. I'm Warden Iris." She set the case on the small table by the bed and began unbuckling it, businesslike, without asking permission. "I've been assigned to assess what happened last night. This won't take long." Kael was awake instantly, sitting forward. "Assess how." "Blood. A few basic reflex tests. Nothing invasive." Iris did not look up from the

Aria's POV A single shout cut through the dark outside, cut off too fast to have finished whatever warning it meant to give. I sat up before I'd even fully processed the sound, my heart already slamming. Kael was on his feet before I'd opened my eyes properly, standing between me and the door with a stillness that had nothing calm in it at all. "Something's wrong." Kael's head was already turned toward the door, nostrils flaring slightly. "That was too quiet after that shout. Wardens don't go down without more noise than that." "You think they're already down." "I think whoever's out there knew what they were doing." The door didn't creak open. It was ripped from its hinges and crashed to the floor. Two figures stepped through the broken doorway, their faces covered. The way they moved made it clear they knew exactly what they were doing. Kael met the first one head-on before it had fully cleared the doorway. The sound that came out of him wasn't a shout. It was lower, ro

Aria's POV They took us back to the same stone chamber within the hour. The fire was already burning when we arrived, and all five seats above it were occupied, even though it was already late. The silver-haired woman sat in the centre this time, watching us as we walked down the stone steps. "This Council was not convened to discuss a fake-dating arrangement tonight," she said, before anyone had even properly sat down. "Warden Voss tells me a facility on neutral ground was breached. That an intruder carried a mark none of us has seen catalogued in this Circle for over a generation. That a woman none of us knows appeared out of nowhere and killed a man with her bare will alone." Her eyes moved to my mother last, settling there. "I would like to hear from her first." My mother stepped forward without waiting to be told twice. "My name is Elena. I left the Ravenwood Clan before my daughter was born. I have not spoken to anyone from it in over twenty years." "The Ravenwood Clan disb