Chapter 37
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Ireturned to the barracks with the scent of smoke and ash still clinging to my skin, even though the flames had long since died.
The others were already inside, the low hum of conversation replacing the silence of war-broken stone. I peeled off my tunic and armor, washing quickly in the washroom. The water was cold, but it cut through the grime and cleared my mind enough to function.
By the time we headed to the dining hall, the lanterns had been dimmed for the evening, their soft golden glow casting long shadows against the high stone walls.
The main crowd of riders had already eaten, only a few stragglers remained, scattered and quiet.
Most of them nodded to us in acknowledgment but didn’t approach.
The warders, however, were still seated. They took up three tables near the east wall, and the number of them was… concerning.
We took a corner table near the back, still covered in crumbs and half-cleaned mugs. It didn’t matter. We were used to scraps and silence.
Cordelle sat beside me, shifting his ever-present satchel off his shoulder and placing it gently on the bench.
“There’s fewer warders than usual,” Riven murmured, glancing around.
“Yeah,” Naia said. “There were at least five more last week.”
Cordelle stirred the contents of his soup slowly. “Some will be up in the towers,” he said absently. “But this few? That’s not just assignments. Something’s going on.”
“Deaths?” Jax asked, his tone low but blunt.
“Transfers,” Ferrula added. “Meri said they were being sent to outer regions.”
Or disappearing, I thought.
My gaze drifted toward the warders’ tables again, and then I spotted Quinn. He sat by himself near the window, poking absently at his bread roll. When his eyes found mine, I smiled.
He returned it softly, tired but genuine.
“He’s not being protected properly,” I said aloud, mostly to Cordelle.
“I know,” he replied.
I turned to him, watching the way he cradled the satchel like it held something fragile. “What is it?”
He looked at me, his expression a little brighter. “I found something. A few pages tucked into the binding of an old text my father loaned me.”
“What kind of something?” I asked, voice sharpening.
He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “It’s about the Stormborn Prophecy.”
Around us, the hall dimmed, soup steam and clinking cups fading to background noise.
The air grew still.
“What did it say?” I whispered back, heart already beating faster.
Cordelle’s eyes glinted behind his lenses. “You might want to finish your dinner first. Because what I found… is concerning.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Cordelle reached into his satchel slowly, careful as if the parchment inside might crumble beneath his fingertips. He slid out two loose, yellowed pages and placed them flat on the table between us, weighing down the corners with his spoon and the heel of his hand.
“They weren’t part of the original binding,” he said in a hushed voice. “I don’t know what book they’re from. I think someone tucked them inside deliberately—hidden.”
I leaned in, and the others followed, our bowls forgotten. “What do they say?” I asked.
Cordelle’s voice dropped further. “It’s a warning. A… counter-interpretation of the Stormborn Prophecy.”
The table went still.
“There are several versions,” he continued, “that say the Stormborn will rise in the kingdom’s time of need. That she’ll bring balance, forge peace between dragons and men, even between fae and mortal.” He tapped the first page. “But this one… this speaks of a darker path. A different ending.”
Riven stiffened. “How different?”
Cordelle swallowed. “Some interpretations claim that the Stormborn’s power, if left unchecked, will lead to the fall of the crown itself. That she will not unite the empowered… she’ll break them. All of them. Riders. Warders. Healers. Even the dragons.”
The words struck like thunder between us.
“The fall of the empowered,” Ferrula echoed quietly. “All empowered.”
A cold chill crawled down my spine.
“I don’t believe it,” Naia said, shaking her head. “Not for a second.”
“Neither do I,” Jax muttered, folding his arms. “You’re not some destroyer. You’re you. We know you.”
Riven leaned forward, dark eyes locked on mine. “If your magic is powerful enough to break kingdoms… it’s because the kingdoms need breaking.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Their trust settled over me like a second skin, unearned, undeserved, but whole. After everything I’d survived, I’d never imagined loyalty like this. Not when they’d seen me at my worst. Not when I was still figuring out what I was becoming.
I bowed my head slightly, breath catching.
Then I reached out through the bond.
Kaelith.
Her presence stirred immediately, like a tornado waking from slumber. Yes, little storm?
They trust me. Even after hearing what I could become.
Because they know your heart, she said simply. If you were meant to destroy the world, I would have scorched you before the bond ever formed.
I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Blunt, but oddly comforting.
And for the first time since hearing the word Stormborn, I didn’t feel like a prophecy waiting to fall.
I felt like a person worth fighting for.
As the others fell into quiet conversation, their minds reeling from Cordelle’s revelation, I sat back slightly, staring into the shadows dancing at the edges of the table. The words on the old parchment echoed in my skull, the fall of the empowered.
How could I break the kingdom? I asked her quietly. What could I possibly do that would cause the crown itself to fall?
Her voice came slow and steady, not with fear, but certainty.
Only if you chose the wrong side. If you let them shape your power instead of forging your own path.
What does that mean? I asked.
You could break the kingdom if you joined the Blood Fae... or if the nobles themselves fell from power.
I blinked. “One of the sects?” I said aloud, the realization slamming into me like a blade between the ribs.
The others looked at me, startled.
“I don’t think the Blood Fae are the only threat,” I said, voice quiet but certain. “One of these new sects, maybe both, could try to use me. They might see me as more than just a rider.”
Riven frowned. “You think they’d try to recruit you?”
“They wouldn’t need to,” Cordelle said, adjusting his glasses. “Not directly. The Crimson Sigil could just display you. Use your image—white-haired, bonded to one of the strongest dragons, raised by assassins—as everything wrong with the nobility. A symbol of what they say is corrupt.”
“And the Varnari?” Naia asked.
I met her gaze, the knot tightening in my gut. “They’d claim I was stolen from them. That I was a magic-born commoner taken by the throne. Forced to bond with a dragon that didn’t want me. That I’m a victim of the Crown’s lies.”
“But if you sided with them...” Cordelle said, voice trailing off like it hurt to say it.
“That would break the nobility,” Naia finished softly. “And possibly the treaty with the dragons.”
Ferrula exhaled slowly. “The dragons wouldn’t accept another war tied to betrayal.”
“They might see it as a betrayal of the bond,” Jax added, his voice low and gruff. “And that’s something they don’t forget.”
The weight of it pressed against my ribs like armor that didn’t quite fit.
Kaelith, I whispered inwardly, if I ever strayed, would you stop me?
Her response rumbled like thunder.
I would tear down cities to protect you from others. But I would burn you myself before I let you become a weapon for anyone else.
A chill rippled over my skin… not from fear.
But from trust.
Because Kaelith would never let me fall without a fight.
And neither would the people around this table.
Ferrula leaned forward, her scar catching the glow of the lanterns overhead, the low hum of the dining hall fading around us as her voice dropped.
“In Diria,” she began, her tone low and even, “there was a movement. A real one. Not a whisper in alleyways, not a symbol on a tavern wall. A true uprising. The people rose up against the nobility… for good reason.”
Her eyes darkened, her voice hardening with every word. “In my homeland, it’s not uncommon for raiding parties to come through villages, sometimes rogue guilds, sometimes mercenaries. They pillage. They burn. They take. Women are expected to fight or be taken. There is no other choice.”
Naia’s jaw clenched. Riven leaned in, listening like her life depended on it.
Ferrula continued, “Even among those who choose to fight… there’s danger. I’ve seen warriors fall prey to the very men they fought beside. Brotherhood doesn’t always mean safety.”
Jax’s hand curled into a fist against the table. “Anyone who touched you is dead,” he said, voice tight with barely leashed fury.
Ferrula looked over at him and offered a small, rueful smile. Despite her shaved head and the scar that ran like a silver strike along the left side of her face, she was striking. Her strength made her beautiful.
“There was one who tried to end it,” she said softly.
“A warrior woman named Kashva. She lost her sister… executed by the king of Diria for refusing to give herself to one of his lords. That warrior rallied the people. She fought harder than anyone, and she became more than just a leader, she became a symbol of survival.”
Ferrula looked me dead in the eye. “A figurehead is essential to a coup. And for a time… it worked.”
I swallowed. “What happened?”
“She was assassinated,” Ferrula said, her voice hollow. “Poisoned. It’s believed she was killed by someone close to her. Someone she trusted. Her death ended the fight. The rebellion shattered.”
The table went silent.
I nodded slowly, letting the words settle like stones in my gut.
“You think they’ll try to kill me,” I said.
Ferrula didn’t flinch.
“I know they will,” she replied. “If you rise too far, they’ll either put a crown on your head… or a knife in your back.”
And the truth in her words hung heavy in the air between us.
Because in this world, power didn’t just corrupt.
It marked you.
And once marked… you never stopped being hunted.
The table was silent.
Still.
Heavy with the weight of Ferrula’s story, of Diria’s brutal truths, and the memory of a rebellion silenced by betrayal.
But Jax, my big, brash, brawler of a rider-brother, sat at Ferrula’s side, chewing on a gravy-soaked biscuit like it had personally offended him.
His muscles were wound tight, shoulders bunched beneath his armor like he was ready to murder someone.
There was no joke in his expression, only rage, and something quieter beneath it—something protective.
I knew what he saw in Ferrula’s words. The implication not said. That once, before her blade, before the scars, before the steel in her spine, someone had failed to protect her.
And Jax wasn’t the kind of man who forgot those things.
Ferrula stared at him for a moment, unmoving. Calculating.
Then, without any warning or softness, she said, “Jax.”
His head snapped toward her, fire still in his eyes, until they met hers.
And just like that, his gaze softened.
“What, babe?” he asked, rough around the edges but trying.
Ferrula didn’t blink. “You may perform cunnilingus on me later.”
Jax choked.
A half-mangled piece of biscuit launched from his mouth and hit the edge of his plate with a wet splat. Cordelle immediately ducked his head, eyes glued to the parchment in his hands like the words there might save him from dying of secondhand embarrassment. His cheeks flushed a deep-crimson.
Naia and Riven both made noises that sounded suspiciously like suppressed snorts. Their shoulders shook, though their faces tried to stay neutral. Tried.
Tae’s face, however, went rigid, still as a statue.
And I knew, immediately, that he understood what most of the table didn’t.
Because in Dirian custom, that wasn’t just flirtation.
It was a claim.
A promise.
I cleared my throat, biting back a grin that wanted very much to exist.
“Jax,” I said carefully, “do you understand what it means when a Dirian warrior offers you that particular honor?”
Jax swallowed the rest of his food in one dry gulp and blinked at me.
“I mean…” He scratched the back of his neck. “I think I do? But also, maybe not?”
Jax stared down at his biscuit like it had the answers to the universe and maybe a way to rewind time. His face was still flushed, the tips of his ears glowing crimson as the rest of us tried, tried, to pretend we weren’t all watching him slowly combust.
I took pity on him.
“Jax,” I said gently, drawing his attention from the ruined remains of his dinner.
He looked up, eyes wide, a little wild. “Yeah?”
I kept my voice calm, careful. “In Dirian custom… when a woman chooses a partner, it’s not just flirtation. It’s a declaration. A vow.”
He blinked. “A what?”
“It means,” I said, meeting his gaze, “for life. If a Dirian warrior chooses you, they mean to fight beside you. To protect you. To claim you, and be claimed, until death.”
Riven let out a slow, low whistle.
Cordelle made a choking noise behind his parchment.
Naia looked far too delighted.
Ferrula didn’t so much as blink.
“You can accept,” I continued, “or you can decline. But if it’s the latter, you should do it now. There’s no ‘maybe’ in Dirian custom.”
Jax sat in silence, his mouth half open, then slowly closed. He turned to look at Ferrula, who stared back at him like a carved statue, strong, still, and waiting.
“I take it I have to prove I’m worthy,” he said.
I nodded. “Ferrula will ask you to perform certain tasks over the next few weeks or months. If she finds you adequate, she will ask you to marry her. If not, she will rebuke you, but if you embarrass her… she will kill you.”
Naia snapped her gaze to Ferrula. Obviously, she didn’t like that part of Dirian courtship.
But Ferrula didn’t move.
She didn’t beg.
She didn’t blush.
She simply waited for her answer.
And in that moment, something shifted in Jax’s eyes. The bravado faded. The jokes died on his tongue.
And what was left… was real.
He cleared his throat and nodded once.
“I look forward to pleasuring you,” Jax responded formally.
Ferrula’s lips quirked—just slightly. Not a smile. Not quite.
But it was enough.
And in Dirian tradition… that was a proposal.
Tae blew out a breath. “Let the courtship begin.”