جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 40

The Void didn’t attack the Citadel.That’s what made it worse.Two weeks after the training intensified, the reports started coming in from the borders. Whole villages gone silent. Scout packs found dead with no marks on them. Just… empty. Like the life had been sucked out.“The Void isn’t dumb,” Kade said, pointing at the map where red markers spread across the eastern territories. “It’s not hitting us head on again. It’s cutting us off. Testing Aria’s reach. Seeing if she’ll feel it.”He was right.Aria was 6 weeks old now and she’d been restless for 3 days. Crying in her sleep. Gold eyes snapping open at random times. The Moonblood in her was reacting to something even before we got the reports.Darius had the army spread thin across the borders, but we couldn’t be everywhere. The Void was hitting too many places at once.“We split up,” I decided, holding Aria as she whimpered in my arms. “Elias and I go to the eastern villages. Darius and Kade hold the Citadel. If the Void is tryi

Aria didn’t wake up for 3 days.We carried her out of Lyra’s tomb and back to the Citadel in silence. The binding worked - the Void was gone from the cavern, the air felt clean for the first time in weeks. But Aria was pale, too still, her gold eyes closed and her breathing shallow.“She used too much,” Lyra said, checking her pulse for the tenth time. “Moonblood at that age… it’s like asking a newborn to lift a mountain. Her body isn’t ready.”Darius hadn’t left her side since we got back. He sat on the edge of her bed, holding her tiny hand in both of his, like if he let go she’d slip away.Elias was just as bad. He’d refused to leave her room, curled up in a chair with his training dagger on his lap, watching her like a hawk. He’d said maybe 5 words total since we left the tomb.“She’s strong,” Elias whispered the first night, staring at her. “She’s the strongest. She’ll wake up.”I wanted to believe him. Gods, I wanted to.On day 2, the healers said her heart was strong. Her lungs

Silverglade wasn’t empty.Not in the way we thought.We found it at noon on the second day. The Fae court was eerily silent, no birds, no wind, no sound at all. Like the world had forgotten how to make noise here.The houses were intact. The gardens were still green. But everything felt… dim. Colors were muted. Light felt weak, like we were looking through dirty glass.“The light is being eaten,” Lyra whispered, holding up a crystal. It was supposed to glow on its own. It was dead. “They’re consuming magic in the air. In the land. In everything.”Darius had his sword out, scanning the treeline. “Where are they?”The answer came in the form of movement.Shadows detached from the trees. Not Lycan shadows. Not normal shadows at all.They were holes.Perfect black voids in the shape of Fae. No faces. No eyes. Just absence where light should be. They moved without sound, floating an inch off the ground, and where they passed the grass turned grey and brittle.Sun Eaters.There were 12 of t

They left Silverglade at dawn.All 12 of them, moving as one black mass across the plains toward the Citadel. No scouts. No stealth. They didn’t need it. They knew we’d see them coming.“We have 6 hours,” Kade said, pointing to the scout’s map. The Sun Eaters moved fast - faster than anything with legs should. “They’re eating light as they go. The fields behind them are already dead.”Darius was already giving orders, moving people through the Citadel like a general. “Evacuate the lower levels. Get all non-combatants underground. Lyra, seal the archives. If they get in, we can’t let them take the knowledge.”Elias was at Aria’s crib, dagger on his belt, not taking his eyes off her. She was awake, sitting up, gold eyes with that grey ring watching the doors like she already knew.“Mom,” he said without looking at me. “She’s ready.”I didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t want my 7-week-old daughter to be “ready” for a fight against ancient magic eaters.But he was right.Aria reached for

The Moonstone wouldn’t stop burning.It had been 3 hours since the battle ended and the crystal was still glowing, pulsing in time with Aria’s heartbeat as I held her in the Throne Room. The air around it shimmered with heat, and anyone who got within 3 feet of it felt like they were standing too close to a forge.“The old Moonstone never did this,” Lyra said, keeping her distance. She was one of the new Council members, and her hands shook as she looked at the relic. “It was cold. Dead. This one is… alive.”“Because of her,” Darius said, nodding at Aria. She’d woken up fully now and was staring at the stone with those ancient gold eyes, completely unafraid of the heat that made grown Lycans flinch.I held her tighter. “What is it trying to tell us?”The answer came in the form of sound.Not words. Not exactly. More like a vibration in my bones, in my blood, in the Moonblood that connected me to this stone and to my daughter._Danger._The word hit me so hard I staggered. Darius caug