Todos los capítulos de THE LYCAN KING'S STAR MAID: Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

POV: KiraThe formal reply leaves the private wing under full escort before the afternoon is over.I watch from the edge of the outer chamber as the sealed documents are placed into the hands of the waiting messengers. The captain of the guard gives the final instructions in a low voice. The men move with the disciplined speed of those who understand that any delay or interference will be treated as a direct challenge to the throne. The doors close behind them. The sealed wing returns to its quieter, more contained rhythm.Stefan does not speak of the contents of the reply again after he dismisses me from the study. He does not need to. The language he chose was clear enough when he dictated it: acknowledgment without concession, concern without acceptance of the council’s framing, and an absolute refusal to provide any timeline or list of candidates. The houses will read it and understand that the king has not moved. They will not be satisfied. Satisfaction was never the purpose of t

POV: KiraThe increased restrictions settle over the private wing like a second set of walls.I feel them in the longer intervals between allowed movement, in the doubled presence of the guards at every door, in the way even the few attendants still permitted inside speak less and leave more quickly. The formal letters of concern from the houses have not been shown to me, yet their effect is visible in every tightened order Stefan issues and in the sharper attention he gives the outer approaches.He tells me only what I need to know. The houses have answered the refusal with coordinated expressions of concern. The intent is to isolate the arrangements of the wing as the obstacle and to raise the political cost of maintaining them. The restrictions around me remain absolute. If the pressure moves from written language to more direct action, I will hear it from him first.I accept the information the same way I have accepted every previous layer of the conflict—without argument, without

POV: KiraThe warning settles into the private wing with the same unsoftened weight as every previous hard truth Stefan has given me since the morning the cave came into the open.The next circle will be public. Open discussion in full council is the logical and expected step once written concern and informal talk have sufficiently prepared the ground. When that discussion is finally called, the language used will still be careful and statesmanlike, but the underlying intent will be unmistakable. The sealed wing and its current restrictions may no longer be enough on their own to keep the full force of the noise at a safe distance.I accept the information without asking him to soften a single edge of it. I have stopped expecting softness from the truth of this conflict. The residual memory of his last deliberate touch remains present on my skin like a quiet, persistent confirmation that the personal claim has not shifted under the new warning. The claim is still absolute. The protect

POV: KiraThe second hour after midday arrives with the same dense, deliberate quiet the sealed wing has held for days.I hear the distant, heavy sound of the main doors of the private wing closing after Stefan leaves for the council chamber. The doubled guards take their positions with the disciplined precision of men who understand that the hours ahead will be watched more closely than any that came before. The connecting door stays firmly shut. The outer approaches remain under the tightest watch ordered the night before. I remain in the adjoining chamber exactly as instructed, the residual memory of his last instructions still clear and absolute in my mind.You will hear the results from me first. Not from attendants carrying fragments. Not from residual talk that reaches the lower halls. From me.The claim has not changed because the discussion now has a public date and a public chamber.I sit at the small table beneath the window and watch the narrow slice of sky above the garde

POV: KiraThe attempt comes just after the third night watch changes.I am already awake when the first raised voice reaches the outer corridor. Not a shout—something tighter, controlled, the sound of men refusing entry without yet drawing steel. I leave the bed at once and stand near the connecting door, listening. The exchange lasts less than a minute. Then the main doors of the wing seal again with a heavy finality that tells me the matter has been contained for the moment.Footsteps approach the study. The connecting door opens without a knock.Stefan stands in the doorway in the dark clothes he wears when he expects trouble rather than ceremony. His expression is flat, the kind of calm that comes after a decision has already been made.“Someone tried to pass a sealed message through the outer gate under the mark of a southern house,” he says. “The carrier claimed it was a private petition regarding succession. The guards stopped him. The message is in my possession. The carrier i