All Chapters of THE FORGOTTEN SON-IN-LAW : Chapter 141
- Chapter 150
275 chapters
Chapter One hundred and thirty
The safehouse was silent except for the rhythmic crackle of the fire.Elara sat bound to a heavy wooden chair, her head slumped forward. Strands of her dark hair clung to her tear-streaked face, and her breathing was shallow, ragged.Adrian stood in the shadows, his arms crossed.He had been watching her for hours without speaking, his mind sifting through every word she’d said, every tremor in her voice.Behind him, Mira paced like a caged panther.“This is a mistake,” she muttered. “She’s playing you. She’s been playing us from the start.”Adrian didn’t respond immediately. His gaze was locked on Elara, his expression unreadable.Finally, he said, “Maybe. Or maybe she’s our only way into the Regent’s inner circle.”Mira stopped pacing, her hands tightening into fists.“And what if she’s lying? What if this whole sob story about her brother is just another manipulation?”“Then I’ll know,” Adrian said quietly.A bucket of cold water brought Elara sputtering back to consciousness.She
Chapter One hundred and thirty-one
The aqueduct chamber stank of mildew and smoke. The resistance team slumped against the damp stone walls, wounds hastily bandaged, breaths shallow from the brutal escape.Adrian hadn’t sat. He stood apart, staring into the darkness, his cloak still wet from the sewer water. His silence was heavier than the battle they had just survived.Ronan finally broke it, spitting blood onto the ground.“Well… that went to the abyss, didn’t it?”Mira rounded on him. “You think this is funny?”Ronan raised his scarred brow. “If I don’t laugh, I’ll break something. Preferably her neck.” He jerked his chin at Elara, who sat huddled in the corner, arms around her knees.She didn’t respond. Her eyes were empty now, haunted and hollow.Adrian’s voice cut through the tension, low but sharp.“No one touches her.”Mira snapped her head toward him. “After what she’s done? Adrian, she sold us out. We nearly died because of her.”Adrian finally turned, his eyes like stormfire.“She’s not the enemy. Darius
Chapter One hundred and thirty-two
Dawn came like a blade — cold and hard, cutting through the ragged skyline of Redhaven.Adrian moved like a shadow through the empty lanes, the foundry’s crumbling silhouette growing larger with every step.Around him, Mira, Ronan, and the remaining strike team wore faces set in iron. They had eaten and slept little. There was no bravado now — only the calm, cold focus of people who had decided a thing must be done and would do it, whatever the cost.The foundry sat in a valley of old soot, its chimneys broken teeth against the sky. From a distance it looked abandoned — a ruin the Regent would never expect to be struck with fury. That was the point.Adrian checked the dagger at his hip, then the pendant at his throat. He felt the weight of both as if they were anchors and blades at once.“Remember the plan,” he said softly. “In, cut the tunnel, free who we can, burn what we must, and get out before they understand we’re here.”Mira gave a short nod. “We go in fast, we leave nothing f
Chapter One hundred and thirty-three
The ruin of the foundry still smoked when the news reached Redhaven — a dagger of light through the city’s restless night. Fires flared in alleys; people crowded windows to see the orange horizon where iron once fed shadow. For many it was hope. For Darius it was provocation.Adrian had expected reprisal. He had not expected how quickly the Regent would answer.By first light Redhaven thrummed with urgent movement. Drumbeats that meant warning rolled through the streets. Adrian was at the command post before the sun had fully risen. Mira and Ronan stood with him, maps strewn across a battered table.The men and women he had freed — some of them still shaking from hunger and pain — were gathered in the yard, eyes hollow but attentive.“We knew he’d come for blood,” Adrian said, voice low. “He’ll try to take the palace and turn it into his stage. If he controls the palace, he controls the city’s legitimacy — and the rest will fold.”Mira’s jaw tightened. “He’ll bring the Black Crowns a
Chapter One hundred and thirty-four
Darius’s retreat was no rout. He did not stumble away in disgrace — he withdrew like a serpent, shedding only the skin he no longer needed. By the time his banners vanished into the mist of the northern roads, whispers already followed him: The Regent lives. The Regent gathers strength. The Regent waits.Far from Redhaven, in the frost-bitten reaches of the Iron Marches, Darius’s forces reassembled. The land there was harsher, its people hardened by mines and endless toil. They had little love for Redhaven’s crown, but they respected strength. Darius gave them coin, weapons, and something more potent: a promise of revenge against the “softness” of the capital.Within weeks, villages that once bowed reluctantly to distant rulers now flew his dark banners.The Regent’s name became a rallying cry in the north — whispered in taverns, carved into doors, shouted in midnight musters.But Darius did not only court men. He courted shadows. Reports came to him of old cults stirring in abando
Chapter One hundred and thirty-five
The Iron Marches did not sleep. Its villages, tucked between black ridges and rivers that ran like molten veins, burned with fevered activity. Smithies roared through the night; drums echoed from one mountain hollow to another. The Regent’s banners spread like oil across stone, but it was not just soldiers who gathered now. Something older stirred.Darius stood before the ruin known as the Black Chapel — a cathedral carved centuries ago by nameless monks, abandoned after whispers of blasphemy. Its spires leaned like broken teeth, its windows were gaping mouths. Yet when Darius entered, the air pressed against him with the weight of expectation.The cultists were already waiting. Cloaked in ragged black, their faces hidden, they knelt as one. At their center stood a woman whose presence commanded silence. Her name was whispered only as Maerith, the Shadow-Seer. Her eyes were milk-white, yet she looked upon Darius as though she saw the marrow of his bones.“You come with banners of k
Chapter One hundred and thirty-six
Adrian could not rest. Not when the night hummed with rumors of Darius’s Shadowbound, not when the wound of his own scar throbbed like a living brand. He had fought monsters, tyrants, and betrayal, but this was different. This was something older. Something that whispered his name as if it had always owned him.At dawn, Adrian went where few dared: the palace archives. Dust lay thick as a second skin on scrolls and ledgers, and the old keeper, Master Edrin, squinted as Adrian strode past without a word. Adrian’s boots echoed against stone as he pressed deeper into the vaults, until he reached a door he had seen only once before, in passing.Iron-banded, locked with three seals. His father had called it “the room where kings feared to look.”Adrian pressed his scarred hand to the seal. The iron flared faintly, then cracked. The lock opened.Inside lay not records of trade or decrees of law, but manuscripts bound in skin-like vellum, maps of forgotten shrines, and bloodline genealogie
Chapter One hundred and thirty-seven
The march north began in silence. Adrian traveled with only a handful — Selene, Garrick, and two scouts loyal beyond question. The fewer who knew their destination, the safer it would be. Word of this shrine could spread panic through the ranks, or worse, embolden Darius’s fanatics.The Iron Marches stretched before them: desolate hills streaked with blackened soil, trees twisted as if in torment. Legends said the land itself had been warped when the covenant was forged. The further they rode, the more Adrian felt the weight of invisible eyes upon him.On the third night, Garrick broke their uneasy quiet.“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”Adrian shook his head, though his scar burned as though in denial. “Not in body. But my blood remembers.”Selene frowned. “That’s not a memory. That’s influence. Be careful what you trust.”Yet the strange certainty in Adrian’s steps could not be denied. He led them through valleys where maps faltered, across rivers no cartographer had marked
Chapter One hundred and thirty-eight
The chamber pulsed like a living heart, its walls slick with shadow that dripped and reformed as though the stone itself were bleeding. The faceless entity loomed over Adrian, its body shifting between smoke and flesh, its limbs bending at angles that defied human form. Its presence pressed against their minds like iron bands, threatening to crush thought itself.Selene’s breath hitched, her scar glowing like molten iron. “It’s not one of your ancestors,” she whispered. “It’s the covenant itself. A spirit born from the blood bargain.”The being’s voice came from everywhere at once, rattling the marrow of their bones:“Blood denied is blood betrayed. Then prove your defiance, child of Cole. If you are unworthy, your line dies with you.”The shadow lashed out. A spear of blackness struck like lightning, and Adrian barely managed to raise his blade. Fireless ash met pure night, sparks of pale light bursting where they clashed.Selene moved at his side, her sword of living shadow flarin
Chapter One hundred and thirty-nine
The abyss yawned wide beneath the shrine, and from it rose the ancestors of the Cole bloodline. Not portraits in gilt frames, not proud rulers in history’s pages — but twisted revenants, bound in chains of shadow, their eyes hollow sockets that burned with cold fire.They climbed from the pit one by one: kings crowned with rusted iron, warriors clad in corroded armor, women with their hands stained black from sacrifices long forgottenEach bore the spiral sigil branded across their flesh, glowing with the same cursed light as Adrian’s scar.The entity’s voice thundered through the chamber:“Face the legacy you spurn. If you cannot stand against those who gave everything, you are nothing.”A tall warrior advanced, his jaw sharp as an axe, his chest scarred with battle marks Adrian had seen carved in stone memorials. His greatsword, blackened by shadow, cut the air with a sound like a wailing wind.Adrian’s throat tightened. “That’s Halric Cole. My great-grandfather.”The revenant spo