บททั้งหมดของ HIS FATHER'S LUNA: บทที่ 61 - บทที่ 69

The camp sat two days south of the border, close enough to smell smoke on the wind some nights, far enough that Jasper had allowed his men one real fire and one real meal before the fighting properly began.It hadn't lasted. Ragnar's scouts found them faster than intelligence predicted, and by the second dawn Jasper stood at the edge of a shallow valley watching the first real skirmish of the war unfold below him, close enough to see faces, far enough that he couldn't do anything about the ones he recognized falling."Pull them back," he said, low, to the officer beside him. "They're overextended on the left flank."The horn sounded. His men fell back in good order, disciplined even under pressure, twenty years of drilling holding even now. Jasper watched Ragnar's forces advance into the space they'd vacated, and something in the shape of it made him go still."Commander." He caught the arm of his second, a broad man named Aldous who'd served him fifteen years. "Bring me one of their

He came alone, as she'd asked, and he came fast enough that Emma suspected he hadn't slept any more than she had."Your message said it was urgent.""Close the door."He did, and something in the set of his shoulders told her he understood, before she'd said anything further, that this wasn't going to be the conversation they'd both carefully avoided finishing that afternoon.Emma set the journal on the desk between them without preamble."Isabella's," she said. "I found it in her sealed chambers, weeks ago. I've told no one. Not Jasper. Not Naya. I've been carrying it alone because I didn't know who I could trust with it."Ethan's face went very still. He reached for it slowly, as if it might burn him, and opened to the marked page with hands that weren't quite steady."Victor smiles too easily for a man carrying the burdens he claims to carry." His voice came out rough, reading it aloud. "She wrote this.""Twenty years ago. Before she died." Emma watched him take in the torn pages,

The passage began behind the Temple's deepest altar, a stone panel Lucien pressed in a sequence he'd clearly rehearsed in his head a hundred times over thirty years, never once trusting himself to use it.It groaned open into darkness thick enough to taste, old air that hadn't moved in longer than any of them had been alive."This hasn't been opened since before I was ordained," Lucien said, his voice unsteady as he held a single lantern aloft in one trembling hand. "I was shown it once, as a young priest, told it existed only as formality. I never imagined I'd be the one to use it."Emma went first, Ethan close behind her, the narrow stone stairway descending further than she expected, the air growing colder and stale with every step."How much further?" she asked quietly."Not far now." Lucien's voice carried an odd steadiness now, the particular calm of a man who'd finally stopped fighting the thing he'd feared for decades. "The passage runs beneath the Temple grounds, under the ol

Marcus listened to the whole of it without interrupting, standing at the war room table with his arms crossed, his face carved into the particular stillness Emma had learned meant he was working hard not to react visibly.When Emma finished, he was quiet for a long moment."You went into a sealed passage beneath the Temple," he said finally, "without telling me first.""We didn't know what we'd find. We didn't want to risk—""You didn't want to risk me telling you not to go." Marcus's voice stayed level, though something sharp lived underneath it now. "Your Majesty, I understand the instinct. I even understand the reasoning. But I cannot protect what I don't know about. If something had happened to either of you down there, I would have had no idea where to even begin looking.""Something did happen," Ethan said quietly. "To Lucien."Marcus's jaw tightened. "Show me the blood."They went to the chapel together, the three of them, moving quickly and quietly through corridors still most