All Chapters of I Rejected My Mate On Purpose: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

We ran.Kael went first, shouting orders as he moved, and Selene and Cassian were right behind him. Torvin took Ronan’s arm and half carried him down the corridor, though Ronan kept saying he was fine in a voice that proved he was not. I held Maren’s wrist, and I did not let go. She did not try to pull away.The training yard was already full of confused guards. Some were running toward the great hall, and some were standing still with their weapons drawn, turning in slow circles, as if they had heard a noise they could not find.“Who sounded the horn?” Kael shouted.Nobody answered. A young guard near the well raised his hand slowly and said, “I did. I think. I saw something.”“What did you see?”The guard’s face went blank. “I do not know,” he said. “I saw it a second ago. It was right here.”A cold feeling crept down my spine. I had felt it before, but I could not remember where.We crossed the yard and burst through the doors of the great hall.The room was a mess. Tables had been

We ran to the north gate, all of us at once, and Alistair reached it first.I have never seen anything stranger than that wall. Forty guards stood along the stones, and every one of them had laid down their weapon. Some had put their swords across their knees and sat down. Some stood with their arms hanging loose at their sides and their eyes closed. A few were crying, quietly, the way a child cries when someone has finally picked them up after a long night.The song drifted up from the road below. It was slow and sweet, with a rocking rhythm like a boat on a calm lake, and I felt it tugging at me the moment I stepped onto the wall. It did not feel like a spell. It felt like someone tucking a blanket around my shoulders and telling me I could rest now."Cover your ears," Kael barked, but his own voice came out slurred and gentle. He tore a strip from his sleeve and jammed it into one ear, and then he stood there shaking his head like a man waking up from a nap."It is not an attack,"

Ronan did not move. I do not think he could.Cassian did. He crossed the little round chamber in three strides and put the point of his blade against the side of Ronan's father's throat. The old man did not flinch. He only tilted his chin a little to give the steel more room, as if he had been expecting it."Do not," Ronan said hoarsely."He held the torch," Cassian said. His voice was low and flat. "He held it at our door, Ronan. I have waited eight years to stand this close.""I know." Ronan drew a long, unsteady breath. "So have I. But I want to hear what he came to say, and I cannot hear it if he is dead."Cassian looked at me. I did not know what my face was doing, but he must have read something in it, because after a moment he lowered the blade by a finger's width. He did not sheathe it."Talk," Ronan said to his father. "Quickly. And if I think you are lying, I will not stop him a second time.""That is fair." The old man's voice was dry and cracked. He had not stood up, and I

I did not take her hand.I would like to say it was brave, but mostly my arm would not move. The Eldest's pale fingers hung in the air between us, small and patient and a little shaky with age, and the voice in my head kept whispering the same thing over and over. Do not. Do not. Do not."No," I said.She did not look offended. She lowered her hand slowly and tucked it back around her walking stick, the way a teacher might when a student gives a wrong but honest answer."That is wise," she said. "Your ancestor would have said the same. I would not take my own hand either.""Then what do you want?" Ronan said. He had risen from his knees, and he stood against my shoulder, so close that I could feel him shaking. "Say it plainly. I have no patience left.""I want to tell a story." The Eldest's gray eyes moved over our faces. "I have not told it in three hundred years, and it is not a short one. But I think this child deserves to hear it before she decides whether to hate me.""I already

"Oh, child," Tamsin said again, softly. "What have you done?"I did not know. That was the worst of it. I lay on the cold stone with Ronan's arm across my back and the taste of metal in my mouth, and I did not know what I had done. I only knew that the silver light was still leaving me. A thin bright ribbon ran from my open palm across the pit and into the two broken halves of the stone in the faceless man's hands, and no matter how hard I tried to close my fist, it would not stop."Stop it," Ronan said. His voice shook. "Wren, close your hand.""I am trying.""Try harder.""It will not let go." I was crying and did not notice until the tears ran into my mouth. "Ronan, it will not let go."Selene dropped beside me and gripped my wrist, and then Maren did, and for a moment all four of us pulled against the silver thread like people hauling a stuck rope. Nothing happened. The thread hummed and stayed taut."It is no use," the faceless man said, almost kindly. "She is not holding it. It