THE ALPHA'S FORBIDDEN LUNA의 모든 챕터: 챕터 261 - 챕터 268

POV: Lyra Thorne“You ask me to ride against my own allies for a girl I met three weeks ago, Thorne. Do you know what that costs me? Name a reason better than grief, because grief does not feed an army.”Titus Crane stood in the kitchen doorway with the firelight behind him, and he did not move. Behind me the garden was silent. Corvin, Rhea, Wren and Tam all held their breath. The smoke feeling still crawled in my chest, thin and sweet, and every breath I took tasted of cloves.“My reason is simple,” I said. “Orrin Vale is the man who killed your friends too. Hask told you the Scribe laughed about me. Who do you think the Scribe is?”“I have wondered.”“You do not wonder anymore. Neither do I.”Titus studied me for a long moment. Then he stepped into the cold and shut the door behind him. “Say the rest.”“Vale used you. He used Damon. He made you both think you were the clever ones. He wrote the law, he lit the fire, and then he sat in a council chair for thirty years and watched you

POV: Lyra Thorne“Lower your bows or I will count your names aloud, one at a time, and your mothers will hear them. I am Lyra Thorne. I was a servant in your kitchen for nine years, and you know my face.”The dawn came up gray and thin behind me. Ahead of us the Ashwood wall rose out of the mist, black and wet, with a dozen archers leaning over the parapet. Smoke hung over the fortress like a dirty flag. I could taste it on my tongue. Beside me, Titus sat his horse like a statue. Forty riders waited in the trees behind him.“That is Gale Fenn,” I said, pointing. “Second archer from the left. You took my tray to the council hall once. You said thank you. Nobody else did.”The archer on the wall shifted. His bow dipped a finger’s width.“Lyra,” Briar hissed from my other side. “They have orders to shoot.”“Then they will have to shoot a person.” My heart was pounding so hard I thought they could hear it. “I am not a ghost. I am not an enemy. I am a woman at a gate.”A voice came down fr

POV: Lyra Thorne“Do not look at Kaelan, child. Look at me. Look at the one who fed you. When have I ever asked you for anything except to be happy?”Orrin Vale did not shout. He never did. His voice slid across the Moon Hall like warm milk, and I felt my knees soften before I could stop them. Seven hundred faces watched me. My heart beat in my ears. I had spent nine years learning to walk without being seen, and now every eye in Ashwood burned on my skin.“I am not here to be fed,” I said. “I am here to show you the proof.”“What proof? A letter you stole?”“Wren,” I said, “bring it.”Wren came up the aisle with her chin high. She put the green page on the table and stepped back. Sevra frowned at it. Maren, the eldest of the three who wore gray, took it and held it to the light.“This is addressed to Hask of Dunmere,” she read slowly. “It speaks of a lullaby, and of a girl who will be ready by the harvest moon.” She looked up. Her eyes were hard. “Orrin. Whose hand is this?”“Maren,

POV: Lyra Thorne“Do not step on the ash yet, Lyra. This ground remembers who runs across it. If you go in angry, it will answer in kind, and I have buried enough people here to know it keeps its word.”Corvin held my reins with both hands. We had ridden two hours without speaking, over the broken ridge and down through the burned pines, and now the old Thorne land lay below us like a black bruise on the hills. I had not seen it since I was fourteen. The chimneys still stood. The crooked well still leaned. Even in the thin morning light I could see the shape of my own front step.“I am not angry,” I said.“You are shaking.”“I am cold.”“You are a poor liar for a girl who survived nine years in a fortress.” He tried to smile, but it came out crooked. “Breathe. Count to five. Your mother used to say that when the river rose.”I counted. One. Two. Three. By five my eyes had filled, and I let them. Rhea rode up on my other side, her shawl wound twice around her neck. Wren and Tam followe