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Chapter 209:The Innocent Voice of Zia
The small safe house had grown quieter since Bryden’s return. Yet the silence did not settle; instead, it carried weight—like the pause before a storm. Silvana, now adjusting slowly to her new rhythm as a mother once more, sat with her newborn son resting in her arms. His quiet breaths were her anchor, her reason to remain steady in a world collapsing in shadows.But Zia… little Zia carried something different.She had grown restless ever since Bryden returned from the hunters’ village. His face carried something she couldn’t name—an unspoken heaviness he tried to mask with polite smiles. Children were often dismissed as too young to understand, but Zia noticed things. She had been noticing ever since the night they were taken away from their home, hidden from Zain’s cruel reach.Now, her only refuge was her drawings. Every wall in the safe house had been adorned with them—charcoal, pencils, scraps of paper filled with one image: Aiden Romanov.Sometimes he stood tall, sometimes smili
Chapter 208 – Echoes in Silence
The night stretched long and heavy inside the safehouse. The fire had died down to glowing embers, painting the room in hues of red and shadow. Bryden sat stiff in his chair, staring into the flames, but his mind was far away — trapped between truth and silence.Silvana stirred, still awake though her newborn slept soundly against her breast. Her eyes had followed Bryden since his return. She had seen the twitch in his jaw, the hesitation in his words, the heaviness in his steps. He wasn’t simply tired from the journey. Something had shaken him, something far more dangerous than politics.“You’re hiding something,” she said finally, her voice low but sharp.Bryden flinched. He turned to her, his face a mask of composure, but the firelight betrayed the flicker in his eyes. “I told you everything that matters. The heir accepted the alliance, though reluctantly. That’s all.”Silvana arched a brow, tightening her hold on the child. “That’s not all. I know you well enough, Bryden. You don’
CHAPTER 207 : The visit
The journey was long and dangerous, winding through rivers and mountains, until at last the hunters’ village came into view. What had once been a small, modest settlement was now bustling with new life. Trade routes littered the outskirts, tents of foreign merchants lined the roads, and guards stood tall with pride, their weapons polished, their eyes sharp.This village… it has risen faster than any kingdom I’ve ever seen, Bryden thought, astonished. And all under one man’s leadership.He was led to the council hall. The heir awaited him — the man who had turned the hunters into rulers, whose name was whispered even beyond the borders.When Bryden entered, his steps faltered.The heir stood at the far end, cloaked in the regal insignia of the hunters, but it was not the crown nor the power in his stance that struck Bryden. It was his face — sharp yet kind, his eyes steady yet haunted, and the unmistakable scar near his temple.For a moment, Bryden’s breath stopped.It was Jonas.But s
Chapter 206: Threads of Longing
Jonas had always been a man of shifting skins, but in the hunters’ village, he wore a mask of patience. The huts here were built with earth and timber, humble in design but strong, resilient like the people themselves. He moved among them quietly, offering his hands to carry firewood, his voice to trade stories, his eyes lowered when tradition demanded.He was not a hunter, not by birth nor by training, but he learned quickly—how to set snares, how to gut fish, how to sit by the fire without speaking unless spoken to. The heir’s absence remained a puzzle gnawing at his mind, yet he never pushed. He knew the unspoken law: the hunters revealed themselves on their own terms, not under the pressure of an outsider.It was in the stillness of evening when Jonas was summoned by the elder who had first approached Bryden with the seal alliance. The man’s eyes were sharp, measuring Jonas not by his words but by his silence.“You move like one who wishes to belong,” the elder said, his voice ro
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The night stretched long, but Silvana did not sleep. Each creak of wood, each echo in the corridor beyond her chamber sharpened her awareness. It was as though the shadow’s visit had opened a second set of eyes within her—eyes that now saw more than walls and chains.She began to notice things she had never cared for before.The rhythm of the guards’ boots.The way their patrol slowed after midnight.The hesitation in the cook’s hands when serving food.The longing stares of women who carried buckets past the Romanov quarters—faces hollowed by hunger and grief.It was all there. She had simply not looked hard enough until now.The child cooed softly in her arms, and Silvana brushed his cheek. “Do you hear it too? The silence between their orders? That silence is where we will live, little one. That is where we will grow.”She kept her observations to herself for three days, testing the waters of her new perception. But then she spoke carefully to Bryden when they were alone.“The sold
Chapter 204: Seeds of Rebellion
The night after the shadow spoke to her, Silvana woke with a new kind of fire burning in her veins. The child’s soft cries roused her, and as she nursed him, she could not shake the memory of that voice.“You will rise.”It wasn’t just hope—it was a command.Bryden noticed the change in her almost immediately. Where she had once moved with weary resignation, her eyes now carried steel. He watched silently as she bathed the newborn with water warmed over embers, her hands steady, her posture firm.“You seem… different,” he finally said, his voice low so as not to wake Zia.Silvana glanced at him, her lips curving in the faintest of smiles. “Last night, I was reminded that despair is a luxury I can no longer afford. My children deserve more than survival.”Bryden studied her, brow furrowed. “What did you see?”She hesitated. How could she explain the shadow without sounding mad? Yet something told her Bryden, of all people, would understand.“I heard a voice,” she whispered. “It spoke o
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