All Chapters of The Last Moon of Eldervale: Chapter 31
- Chapter 40
54 chapters
Chapter 31 : What Remains
Alden’s POV The fire did not die all at once.It lingered, smoldering in corners and breathing weakly through the blackened beams and half-burned shelves, like the fortress itself refused to let go of what had happened inside it. Smoke crawled along the stone ceiling, thick and bitter, stinging my eyes until tears slipped free no matter how hard I tried to hold them back.I sat where I had collapsed, my back pressed against a cracked pillar with my hands still wrapped around the Book of Solomon.Or what was left of it.The cover was scorched. The edges curled and brittle. Symbols etched into the leather glowed faintly, then dimmed, as if exhausted. I could feel it no longer humming with that unbearable weight it had carried before. Whatever power had lived inside it was gone.Around me, the others slowly stirred.Thomas rolled onto his side and gagged, coughing soot from his lungs. Hoseman dragged himself upright with a groan, his armor warped and blood-soaked, his face older someho
Chapter 32 : Deserted Village
Alden’s POV We left the fortress behind us as the sun climbed higher, but the light did nothing to warm the road.Ash still clung to my boots, to my cloak, to my hands no matter how many times I wiped them against my trousers. Every step away from the graves felt wrong, like abandoning something unfinished, like leaving pieces of ourselves buried in the dirt with Armalen and the priest and the others whose names would never be sung.The road to the Capital stretched long and we rode in a loose formation.Rowan led at the front, straight-backed despite the way grief weighed on him. Thomas rode behind him, quieter than I’d ever known him, his usual sharp tongue dulled by loss. Hoseman brought up the rear, one hand tight on the reins, the other pressed subtly to his back.I noticed and at first, I told myself it was nothing. We were all wounded. Bruises, burns, cuts and pain had become part of breathing. But Hoseman’s movements were stiff in a way that didn’t ease with time. His jaw sta
Chapter 33 : Embers and Echoes
Alden’s POV We stood frozen with our swords raised as the scrape came again and I strained to see beyond the edge of the light, into the thick dark that swallowed the broken houses whole.“Show yourself,” Rowan called with a low but steady voice but no one answered only a loose shutter knocked softly against a wall. Somewhere in the distance, something small skittered across gravel.Then everything went silent back.We remained like that for a long moment Five men and one half-conscious soldier, blades drawn against shadows.Thomas was the first to exhale. “I don’t hear it anymore.”I didn’t either.Rowan kept his sword raised a heartbeat longer before lowering it slowly. His jaw tightened, but he forced a breath through his nose.“Perhaps,” he said at last, “we are more tired than we realize.”Thomas huffed quietly. “You think we imagined it?”Rowan sheathed his blade. “Grief does strange things to the mind. Stress fractures it. Makes it hear ghosts in empty streets.”The idea unset
Chapter 34 : The Song Before the Hunt
Alden’s POV Rowan’s words lingered between us long after he finished speaking.“Some people who once took you for a fool… new people will see you as a hero.”The embers glowed faintly, breathing their last. The ruined village around us felt less like a graveyard and more like something waiting.Rowan rested his forearms on his knees, staring into the dying fire.“There is nothing more precious than life,” he said quietly after a while. “That’s why we fight not for glory or crowns and not for songs sung by drunkards in taverns.”His jaw tightened slightly.“We fight because life is fragile. Because it can be stolen in a second by monsters who think themselves gods.”His gaze drifted toward the dark houses around us.“Rip to the souls we lost,” he murmured.I bowed my head slightly.Armalen,Dutch,TrumanThe priest.The villagers.My family.And then we heard a soft sound.A single, clear note floating through the air.Rowan’s head snapped up.The note stretched into melody.A flute.Th
Chapter 34 : The Song Before the Hunt
Alden’s POV Rowan’s words lingered between us long after he finished speaking.“Some people who once took you for a fool… new people will see you as a hero.”The embers glowed faintly, breathing their last. The ruined village around us felt less like a graveyard and more like something waiting.Rowan rested his forearms on his knees, staring into the dying fire.“There is nothing more precious than life,” he said quietly after a while. “That’s why we fight not for glory or crowns and not for songs sung by drunkards in taverns.”His jaw tightened slightly.“We fight because life is fragile. Because it can be stolen in a second by monsters who think themselves gods.”His gaze drifted toward the dark houses around us.“Rip to the souls we lost,” he murmured.I bowed my head slightly.Armalen,Dutch,TrumanThe priest.The villagers.My family.And then we heard a soft sound.A single, clear note floating through the air.Rowan’s head snapped up.The note stretched into melody.A flute.Th
Chapter 35 : Taken
Alden’s POV We sprinted deeper into the ruined village with the wolves crashing behind us like a collapsing wall of teeth and fur.Stone shattered beneath their weight. Broken doors split from their hinges as they forced through houses to cut us off. Their snarls overlapped hungrily.Rowan didn’t slow.“Left!” he barked, dragging me around a narrow bend between two leaning buildings.A shadow dropped from above.I barely had time to turn before a wolf slammed into me mid-stride.The impact drove me into the ground. My head struck a stone. Stars exploded across my vision. The axe flew from my grip, skidding somewhere into the dark.The wolf landed on top of me.Its weight crushed the air from my lungs. Its claws pinned my shoulders. Its breath was hot and rancid, flecked with blood. Its jaws opened slowly, deliberately, as if savoring the moment.I pushed against its chest with my trembling arms but It didn’t budge.Its teeth lowered toward my throat but a violent crack split the air.
Chapter 36 : A Deal with the Devil
Hoseman’s PovPain woke me up and my eyes opened slowly.Stone ceiling and smoke.The smell of wet fur and blood.I tried to move but Iron chains snapped tight around my wrists.I was hanging.My boots barely brushed the cave floor. My shoulders burned from being stretched too long. My ribs ached with every breath.Across from me Percy was chained the same way.His helmet was gone and his face was pale.Good. He was alive.For now.A shape moved in the dim torchlight.The Leader stepped forward.He circled me slowly, hands clasped behind his back as if inspecting livestock.“You wake,” he said lightly. “Excellent. I dislike breaking men who cannot appreciate the effort.”I spat blood at his feet.He smiled.A clawed hand struck my ribs without warning.Something cracked.I grunted but swallowed the sound.He leaned close to my ear.“Is this how you want to die?” he asked softly. “Death in service to knights who will not even come to your rescue?”Another blow.My vision flashed white.
Chapter 37 : The Lesson of the Flesh
Hoseman’s POVI did not know how long I had been hanging there.Time had stopped meaning anything.There was only the rhythm now.Drip.Drip.That was my blood hitting a stone.My wrists were no longer wrists. They were raw meat caught in iron. Every time my weight shifted even slightly,my skin tore a little more and I had stopped trying to adjust.When they howled, when they struck, when they mocked that I could endure. Noise was easier than silence.Silence meant they were planning.A slow set of footsteps echoed across the cavern floor.The Leader stepped into my line of sight.He did not look at my wounds first.He looked at my face.“You are still here,” he said mildly.My lips were cracked. When I tried to speak, the split reopened and I tasted iron again.“Unfortunately,” I rasped.He smiled faintly.“I admire your consistency.”He circled me slowly.My back screamed when I tried to follow him with my eyes, so I let my head hang again.He stopped behind me.A single claw traced
Chapter 38 : The Hunt
Hoseman’s POV My eyes opened to gray morning light slicing across my face.I wasn’t hanging anymore but I was on the ground with my wrists bound in iron again but this time chained in front of me and a thick iron collar locked around my neck.The chain attached to it was long.The cave mouth loomed behind me.The forest stretched ahead.The Leader stood just beyond my reach.“We hunt today,” he said calmly.My body felt like torn cloth stitched poorly together. Every breath stabbed. My ribs shifted unnaturally. My shoulder throbbed where Percy had bitten deep.But I forced myself onto my knees.“You’re tired of cutting me in your den?” I asked hoarsely.A faint smile touched his mouth.“No,” he said. “Today is about education.”Two wolves yanked me to my feet but my legs buckled instantly.They didn’t help but dragged me forward until I found balance or lost skin.The forest floor was damp. Cold mud pressed into open wounds.The pack moved around us silently alongside Percy not as a
Chapter 39 : Continued Torture
Hoseman’s POV Pain woke me before sight did.It wasn’t sharp at first.It was deep.Like something heavy had been laid across my entire body and left there to settle into bone.Then sensation sharpened.My shoulders.My ribs.My side.The burn.I tried to inhale and the movement pulled against something inside me that was no longer aligned the way it should be. My breath came shallow and ragged. When I forced my eyes open, the cave ceiling swam above me in dim gray light.I wasn’t hanging but I wasn’t free either.My wrists were chained above my head again, though lower than before, keeping my arms stretched just enough to strain the torn muscle around my shoulders. My ankles were shackled apart. The iron collar was back around my neck.The chain attached to it ran upward and looped through a ring carved into the cave ceiling before dropping down the other side where it was fastened to the Leader’s hand.He stood several feet away.Holding it loosely.As if I were nothing more than l