جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 70

POV: ARIAI sat on the edge of the stone hearth, looking down at my open hands as the cool night breeze blew through the shattered balcony window.Inside my chest, the deep, icy silence that had defined my life since Coldspire was gone. In its place was a low, steady hum, a resonant warmth that felt like a sleeping beast stirring beneath a layer of winter frost.They bound us, a voice echoed clearly in my mind. It was not human speech, but a primal, instinctual thought arising directly from my core wolf. The cold... the iron chains... the bitter water they forced down our throat every morning in the quarry... it was not just punishment. It was an iron leash.A cold, burning rage ignited inside my chest, far hotter than any anger I had felt toward Gavin or Lyra.I didn't care about the Solvane crown. I didn't care about silk gowns, high palace titles, or sitting on an obsidian seat in the capital. But learning that someone had intentionally used suppressants and physical torture to br

POV: ARIAThe morning sun filtered through the shattered glass of my bedchamber balcony, casting long, sharp rays across the dark hardwood floor.I sat at the small round table near the hearth, staring down at the duplicated parchment Lord Kaelen had placed before me. The ink was fresh, transferred directly from the hidden Directorate files beneath the capital garrison.The Solvane Eclipse Wolf.I traced my fingers over the sweeping script written by the former High Court Alchemist twenty years ago. The words described a dormant power capable of overriding and commanding any Alpha spirit in the northern realm, a rare, ancient trait that appeared once every few centuries within the Solvane royal lineage."An Eclipse Wolf," I murmured, my voice low and completely devoid of warmth. "Is that why they kept it secret?"Kaelen stood by the hearth, his hands clasped behind his heavy leather coat, his sharp blue eyes grave as he looked down at me."Even inside the royal palace, Aria, rare bloo

POV: LYRAThe paper fragment fluttered from my trembling fingers, landing softly on the thick rug beside my bed.The air in my room suddenly felt too thin to breathe. My chest heaved in frantic, shallow gasps as the terrifying truth settled into every corner of my mind.Two years ago, when Mother fell into a sudden, unexplainable coma, I was the one who had rushed into the hallway screaming for the guards. I was the one who pointed at the empty glass sitting on Aria’s bedside table. I was the one who wept hysterically in Gavin’s arms, telling him that Aria had always been jealous of Mother’s affection, that Aria was the only person who had prepared her evening tea.I had believed it. I had wanted to believe it because it was easier to hate Aria than to look closely at what was happening in our home.“You must ensure she drinks this tea every evening, Lyra,” the stranger’s voice from two years ago echoed back into my mind, cold and precise. “It will ease her mind. It will make her gent

POV: ARIAI looked down at Lyra weeping on the cold floorboards, her shoulders shaking violently as tears soaked into the hem of her silk gown.For two years, in the freezing mud of the stone quarry, I had imagined what it would feel like to hear her confess. I had thought it might bring me peace, or at least a quiet sense of justice.Instead, a dark, searing fury ignited in my chest, hotter than any flame."Fear?" My voice dropped into an icy, dangerous register that made the room grow deathly quiet. "You knew I was innocent, yet you watched them slam iron collars around my neck because you were afraid?"Lyra looked up at me, her face pale, tear-stained, and contorted with desperation. "Aria, please... I was seventeen! Gavin had just brought me to the keep... I had spent my entire childhood as a street stray with nothing! I thought if I defended you, Gavin and Vance would cast me out into the snow!"I stepped toward her, stopping inches from where she knelt. The newly awakened, silve

POV: ARIAI looked down at the powerful Alpha kneeling before my boots on the cold stone floorboards.Gavin’s broad shoulders trembled as he wept, his face lowered in utter defeat, his hands clutching at the dusty wood near my hem. For two years, I had believed this moment, seeing Alpha Gavin broken, stripped of his pride, begging on his knees, would bring a flood of triumph or rage.Instead, I felt nothing. Only a vast, quiet stillness."Aria... please," Gavin choked out, his voice raw, hoarse, and ruined by his own grief. "Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix this. I will give up the title of Alpha... I will dismantle Frostwood... I will face the executioner's block in the capital if you demand it. Just... do not look at me as if I am dead."I took a slow, quiet breath, pulling my travel cloak closer around my shoulders."I will not demand your death, Gavin," I said, my voice steady, clear, and colder than the winter thaw sweeping through the northern mountains. "And I will not co