THIRTY-NINE
LISTEN TO THE WIND
As these new truths begin to emerge, I find myself wondering whether they will be enough to spark change.
And if they do, who will welcome it? Change seldom comes unopposed; those who hold power rarely surrender it willingly.
So now I look to who has the most to lose if these revelations are believed.
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
AMARA
An hour later, the warmth of Thane’s arms still lingers on my skin as I step into Valen’s quarters.
The room overflows with ancient tomes, scrolls stacked precariously on every available surface, and there is an ever-present scent of parchment, ink, and burning sage.
Valen is bent over a massive spread of books and loose parchment, his fingers brushing across the pages of a leather-bound journal I recognize instantly. It’s the one we found in the Starlit Chamber.
I knock on the open door to draw his attention.
He looks up, eyes sharp, assessing. Then he smiles. “You’re late.”
“I was . . . ” I hesitate, clearing my throat. “Busy.”
Valen’s smile deepens as he leans back in his chair. “I’m sure you were.”
I huff, refusing to take the bait. “If you’re done poking at me, maybe we can get back to the part where you explain what you found?”
Valen chuckles, but his expression quickly sobers. He gestures to the journal, flipping it open with careful hands.
“I’ve spent the past two weeks going through every record I could find, cross-referencing this with what we pulled from the Starlit Chamber.”
He taps a passage near the bottom of a worn page.
“And?” I prompt, stepping closer.
“And,” he says, his voice turning grave, “I think we were wrong about the bond.”
A prickling, unsettling chill creeps down my spine.
“Wrong how?”
Valen meets my gaze, his expression carefully neutral. Too neutral. It puts me on edge.
He hesitates, for a moment, then speaks. “It has nothing to do with you being the Spiritborn. It’s tied to the Shadow Realm.”
My pulse pounds in my throat, a slow, dragging beat.
“What exactly do you mean?” I ask softly.
“We assumed the bond formed because you’re the Spiritborn,” Valen says. “Part of your awakening. Part of your destiny. That it was meant to happen because of who you are.”
A weight settles in my stomach. “And now?”
Instead of answering, Valen turns the journal toward me. The ink is faded, the script jagged and hurried. But the words stand out stark against the page.
The Warden’s power is not bound by time. The bond will always lead them back to where it began. To where it must end.
I stare at the words, my stomach twisting. The Warden’s power. Not the Spiritborn. Not a gift from the gods. I already know what that means.
Thane.
My mouth feels dry, but I need to hear Valen say it. “Valen, what are you saying?”
“We assumed the bond was just a rare connection. Something Elemental. Something sacred.” His fingers drum against the table. “But if this record is accurate, then the bond isn’t just connecting you and Thane.”
The phantom feeling of spiders skittering along my spine raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Then what is it doing?”
Valen’s expression tightens. “I think it’s leading you somewhere.”
The silence that settles between us is heavy and suffocating.
I stare at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Every reference I’ve found describes the bond as a path. A thread. A force pulling two people toward a specific outcome. Like how you and Thane found the Starlit chamber. We thought it existed because of the prophecy.”
Valen meets my gaze.
“What if the prophecy exists because of the bond?”
The room seems to tilt beneath me as my mind catches up to his meaning. The bond isn’t a consequence. It’s a cause. A force older than the prophecy itself.
And if it’s leading us somewhere, then someone, long before either of us were born, may have intended it to.
The words feel too heavy. Too final.
A sick kind of dread coils in my gut. Ancient things waking up never seems like a good idea.
I take a deep breath to center myself. “Where is the bond leading us?”
Valen shakes his head.
“That’s what I don’t know yet. The journal is fragmented, and this passage is the only one I’ve found that mentions the bond directly.”
His fingers brush over the worn page.
“But there are notes in the margins. References to records that no longer exist. Mentions of entire sections being removed.”
My fingers tighten against the edge of the table.
Hidden. Of course it was hidden. Or worse, forever lost.
If this bond was meant to lead us somewhere, if it was always meant to be a path toward something, then whoever erased the Shadow Warden history wasn’t simply hiding the past. They were hiding a destination.
A purpose.
An ending they never wanted anyone to reach.
Valen exhales sharply and flips another page in the journal. The dim firelight catches the tension in his expression.
“It was never about rebuilding.”
I frown, leaning closer. “What do you mean?”
He looks up, his gaze hard. “The war. The Fire Clan’s war against the Shadow Wielders. It appears it was never about rebuilding after sealing the Shadow Realm. That was the lie they told the world.”
Bit by bit, the pieces begin to shift inside my mind. The missing records. The erased names. The stories that never quite fit together. My stomach twists as the truth starts to take shape beneath the surface, my mind resisting it even as the pieces align.
“Valen, what are you saying?”
He taps a passage in Sylas Veyne’s journal.
“I kept thinking we were missing something. We assumed the Fire Clan turned on the Shadow Wielders because they were afraid of them after the Unmaking. That it was about protecting the realm.”
His voice drops, rough with anger.
“If these records are genuine . . . ” He hesitates, the words clearly costing him. “ . . . then it may never have been about protection.”
His gaze locks on mine.
“It may have been about extermination.”
The words hit like a blade to the ribs. I stare at him, my pulse hammering.
“Extermination?”
He nods, turning the journal towards me again. The ink is jagged and hurried, carved into the page with sharp, angry strokes.
“They claim we are corrupted. That we are cursed, dangerous. But it is a lie. A manufactured war. They seek not to protect the realm but to erase us from it. Our knowledge, our history, our very existence.”
I suck in a breath. The words burn into me.
Our knowledge.
Our history.
Our very existence.
Not defeat or imprisonment.
Erasure.
“Valen—” My voice barely works.
He shakes his head, flipping to another page, his movements sharp and tense.
“The Unmaking was real. The war against it was real. But what the Fire Clan did afterward?” He exhales, his grip tightening on the fragile parchment. “That wasn’t survival.”
The truth hits me like a slow-moving storm, relentless and impossible to stop. I swallow hard, my throat dry.
“You’re basing this on one journal entry? It was written in the middle of a war. Maybe based on fear. Or it could have been propaganda from the other side.”
Valen’s eyes flash. “One source isn’t evidence. It’s a question.”
He reaches for another stack of documents. Fire Clan military records. Battle logs. Letters.
“I’ve spent the last two weeks cross-referencing everything I could find since arriving at the Capital,” he says. “Look at this.”
He pulls out an official Fire Clan war report and flips to a dated entry.
I skim the page. Then stop, my stomach dropping.
“This . . . ” My eyes move back over the figures. “This doesn’t match.”
“Exactly.” Valen leans forward, tapping the document. “The official records claim the war began because the Shadow Clan attacked first.”
“That’s what’s been taught for generations.”
“But remember,” Valen says, flipping another page, “history is written by the victors.”
He slides a document toward me and I scan the page. A list of troop movements. Supply routes. Orders bearing the Fire Clan seal.
My stomach tightens.
“This was issued before the attack.”
“Two weeks before,” Valen confirms. “The Fire Clan had already begun mobilizing troops along the border.”
I look up sharply. “Then they expected war.”
Valen nods. “Or intended it.”
“Then it wasn’t a response.”
“No.” His voice is quiet. “It was a premeditated campaign.”
I drag my hands through my hair, trying to make sense of this.
“Why? Why go through the effort of making the Shadow Clan the enemy?”
Valen presses his lips into a thin line. “If Veyne is telling the truth, they needed justification.”
I fill my lungs, willing my pulse to settle as my thoughts spin. This is too big.
“But we still don’t have undeniable proof,” I argue. “The troop movements are suspicious, but they’re not evidence of intent.”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he reaches for an aged, yellowed letter and slides it across the table. The parchment is delicate, its edges worn with time. The ink has faded, but the words remain legible.
“I found correspondence between General Sylas Veyne and General Cassian Dain among the records. This is what finally convinced me.” His voice is flat. “They tried to negotiate peace.”
My body goes rigid. Slowly, I lower my gaze to the page. The names jump out at me first.
General Sylas Veyne.
General Cassian Dain.
Shadow Clan.
Fire Clan.
Two enemies. Two leaders at war. And yet, this letter is not a declaration of violence. It is a plea.
“I spent three days trying to prove Veyne was lying,” Valen adds.
I read aloud, my voice barely above a whisper. “ . . . If there is a way to stop the bloodshed, we must find it. This war is being fueled by fear, but we both know the truth. The people do not fear us. They fear what they have been told.”
My voice falters.
Valen nods grimly. “There was an attempt at a ceasefire.”
The room feels suddenly smaller.
“No. That’s not—” I shake my head and force myself to read the next lines.
“You told me once that honor demands truth, but I do not think your Warlord understands what honor is anymore. He does not want peace. He wants erasure.”
The last three words strike with brutal force. I press my palm against the table, steadying myself.
“Erasure,” I echo. The word tastes foreign and bitter on my tongue.
I look back down at the journal, my thoughts racing.
One document could be dismissed. Two could be coincidence.
But the journal, the troop movements, the official reports, and now this letter all point toward the same impossible conclusion.
Individually, each leaves room for doubt, but together, they paint a history that no longer resembles the one I’ve been taught.
Valen exhales sharply, his finger striking the parchment with measured intensity.
“That’s why we need to find the missing ledger.” His voice is taut, threaded with urgency.
I frown. “The ledger?”
Valen nods, already rifling through the piles of parchment scattered across the table.
“Veyne refers to it several times. At first, I thought he was speaking metaphorically. A record of events. Notes. Testimony.”
He pulls out another page and slides it toward me.
“But the more I read, the more convinced I became that he meant an actual ledger.”
I step closer.
“What kind of ledger?”
Valen flips through several pages of the journal, stopping at a marked passage.
“A collection of names. Dates. Correspondence.” His finger traces a line of faded text. “According to Veyne, it contained enough evidence to expose everyone involved.”
A chill runs through me.
“Everyone involved in what?”
He rubs his jaw.
“The campaign against the Shadow Wielders.”
I look back at the journal.
“You never mentioned a ledger.”
“Because until this morning, I wasn’t convinced it existed.”
He taps the page.
“Veyne mentions it three separate times. And in every reference, he writes about it as though it was his final safeguard. The one thing the Fire Clan could never be allowed to find.”
For a moment, all I hear is the pounding of my own heart. Then I ask the question that has already begun forming in my mind.
“Do we know where it is?”
Valen lifts another page and turns it toward me. “This was in his final notes. Read the last line.”
I scan the handwriting, my pulse thrumming.
“They still believe in honor. They still believe in truth. If there is hope, it lies with the wind.”
I stop breathing.
The wind.
For a moment, I simply stare at the words. Then realization clicks into place.
A memory surfaces, unbidden, sharp and vivid.
Thane’s voice.
You need to learn how to shield your mind, Amara.
His eyes holding mine as he waited for my answer.
What do you think of when you think of safety?
I answered without hesitation.
The wind.
Because it was freedom. Strength. The feeling of Calryx’s wings beneath me. The force that carried me forward when everything else threatened to drag me under.
“The Air Clan,” I whisper.
Valen nods. “I believe the ledger was never destroyed. I think Veyne entrusted it to the Air Clan.”
I sit back. For generations, the truth about the Shadow Wars has been buried under Fire Clan propaganda. But it wasn’t lost. It was hidden.
And now we’re standing at the edge of the trail that leads to it.