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Chapter 86: The Veil's Song
Dernière mise à jour:
2025-02-17 18:42:15
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Zara’s POV The meadow is too quiet. No birdsong. No rustle of wind through the wildflowers. Just the four of us, huddled in the aftermath of a victory that feels hollow. Ryland’s arm is slung around my shoulders, his grip tight, as if I might dissolve into the grass. Silas sits cross-legged nearby, his shadows coiled like restless serpents. Selene leans against me, her small hand pressed to my chest, her light a fragile pulse against the silver poison still threading my veins. “It’s still there,” she whispers. “The bad thing.” I don’t need to look down to know she’s right. The flowers around us are dead, their petals shriveled and blackened in a perfect circle where my hands had clawed the earth. The Architect’s final laugh lingers in my mind, a thorn I can’t pluck out. Ryland’s voice is gravel. “We need to move. This place isn’t safe.” “Where?” Silas mutters, kicking at a charmed blade of grass. “Back to the creepy city? That lady tried to turn Mom into a bomb.” “Veyra k
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-02-17MOONBOUND SECRETS Chapter 88: The Shattered Veil
Zara’s POV The city screams. Or maybe it’s me. Smoke chokes the air, thick with the stench of burnt ozone and crumbling stone. My ears ring from the explosion, my vision swimming as I stagger to my feet. Ryland’s arm wraps around my waist, hauling me upright before I faceplant into the rubble. “Move!” he barks, shoving Silas and Selene ahead of us. “*Now!*” The Architect’s shadow looms above the city, a living tempest of ink and teeth. It peels back the sky, the Veil’s fragile threads snapping like cobwebs. Buildings dissolve as it passes, reduced to ash and memory. The ground quakes, fissures splitting the streets, and for a heartbeat, I see *through* the world—into the void, into the Architect’s grinning abyss. ***Run, little wolf***, his voice purrs in my skull. ***You’ll die tired.*** “Mom!” Silas grabs my hand, his shadows lashing at the debris raining down. “This way!” We bolt down an alley, the shadow’s roar shaking the earth. Selene stumbles, her light flickering.
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-02-17MOONBOUND SECRETS Chapter 89: The Mirror's Curse
Zara’s POV The rain falls in silver sheets, stinging my skin like needles. Each droplet hisses where it lands, searing the meadow’s grass into blackened scars. Ryland’s arms tighten around me, his warmth a fleeting comfort against the cold radiating from the shard lodged in my chest. It pulses in time with the Veil’s dissonant hum, a reminder that the fight isn’t over. “We need to bind the wound,” Ryland says, his voice frayed. He rips a strip from his shirt, but I push his hands away. “It won’t help.” The shard isn’t just in me—it’s part of me now, its crystalline edges fused to bone and sinew. I can feel the Architect’s poison simmering beneath the surface, a dormant storm. Silas crouches nearby, shadows pooling at his feet like ink. “The rain… it’s *changing* things.” He’s right. The droplets aren’t just burning the grass—they’re warping it. Flowers twist into grotesque shapes, stems knotting into serpents that writhe before crumbling to ash. Selene presses her palm to the
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-02-17MOONBOUND SECRETS Chapter 90: The Veil's Requiem
Zara’s POV The twins’ power is a wildfire in my veins—beautiful, brutal, *theirs*—but it’s not enough. I can feel the Architect’s poison slithering deeper, a serpent coiling around my spine. My body flickers like a dying star, half here, half *there*, the Veil’s static clawing at the edges of my vision. “Mom, stay with us!” Silas’s voice is sharp, frantic. His shadows fuse with Selene’s light, their combined energy pressing against the hollow in my chest where the shard once lived. “I’m trying,” I rasp, but the words dissolve into static. Ryland’s grip on my hand tightens, his warmth a tether. “Look at me,” he growls, his face gaunt, his eyes blazing gold. “You don’t get to quit.” A laugh ripples through the meadow—not mine, not the Architect’s. *Hers.* The spectral army crests the horizon, a legion of distortions wearing our faces. There’s a Ryland with hollow eyes and jagged claws, a Silas whose shadows writhe with serpents, a Selene whose light bleeds black. And leading th
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Zara’s POV The Architect’s true form looms over the meadow, a writhing mass of silver veins and shattered bone. Its presence is a weight, pressing down on my chest, on my soul. The Veil’s song fractures, its melody discordant, its rhythm faltering. The twins cling to me, their combined light and shadow flickering weakly. Ryland stands at my side, his wolf snarling, but even he looks small against the monstrosity before us. “What do we do?” Silas whispers, his shadows trembling. I don’t have an answer. The shard is gone, the poison in my veins a ticking bomb. The Architect’s voice echoes in my mind, faint but persistent. ***You can’t win***, he croons. ***But you can join me.*** “Never,” I mutter. The Architect’s form shifts, tendrils of silver lashing out. Ryland shoves me aside, taking the brunt of the blow. He crashes into the ground, blood staining his fur. “Ryland!” He shifts back, his face pale but determined. “I’m fine. Focus on *him*.” The Architect laughs, the
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-02-18MOONBOUND SECRETS Chapter 92: The Twin's Choice
Zara’s POV The wildflowers die where I walk. It starts as a subtle thing—petals curling at the edges, stems bowing as if in mourning. But by dawn, the meadow is a graveyard of blackened husks, radiating outward from the spot where I slept. Ryland says nothing when he sees it, but his jaw tightens. Silas and Selene pretend not to notice, though their stolen glances betray them. They know. They always know. The Architect is gone, but his poison lingers. It festers beneath my skin, a quiet rot the twins’ light can’t purge. I scrub my hands raw in the creek until my knuckles bleed, but the corruption clings, a stain no water can wash away. “It’s not your fault,” Selene says, crouching beside me. Her reflection in the water wavers, her golden eyes too wise for a child’s face. “Isn’t it?” I flex my fingers, watching the creek’s current curl away from my touch, repelled. “I let him in. I made the choice.” “To save us,” Silas mutters, kicking a pebble into the water. His shadows co
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Zara’s POVThe air in the room is thick, suffocating, like the weight of every unspoken word between us is pressing down on my chest. Ryland stands in the doorway, his presence as commanding as ever, but there’s something different about him now. His eyes, those piercing gray eyes that once held nothing but cold detachment, are filled with something I can’t quite place. Regret? Longing? Guilt? Whatever it is, it’s enough to make my heart ache in ways I thought I’d buried long ago.“Mommy?” Selene’s voice is small, hesitant, as she tugs at the hem of my apron. “Who is he?”I swallow hard, my throat dry as sandpaper. How do I explain this to them? How do I tell my children that the man standing before us is their father—the man who rejected me, who left me to raise them alone? The man who shattered my heart into a million pieces?“He’s…” I start, but the words catch in my throat. I can’t do it. I can’t say it.Ryland steps forward, his movements slow and deliberate, like he’s afraid of
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-02-23MOONBOUND SECRETS Chapter 94: The Moon's Eternal Light
Zara’s POVThe morning sun filters through the curtains, painting the room in streaks of gold, but it does nothing to warm the ice in my veins. I’ve been awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, replaying yesterday’s encounter in the bakery like a cursed film reel. Ryland’s face—haunted, desperate—flashes behind my eyelids every time I blink. *He knows.* The twins’ laughter drifts in from the kitchen, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing, and I press a hand to my chest, willing my heartbeat to slow. “Mommy!” Silas calls, his voice sharp with impatience. “Selene ate the last pancake!” “Did not!” Selene retorts. “You *stabbed* yours with a fork and threw it on the floor!” “Enough,” I say, stepping into the kitchen, my tone sharper than intended. Both freeze, their little faces snapping toward me. Guilt pricks at me as Selene’s lip quivers. I soften my voice. “There’s more batter. I’ll make another batch, okay?” Silas narrows his eyes, a miniature version of *his* skepticism.
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-02-23
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