Chapter 21 #3
Syris inhaled sharply through his nose, calming himself enough to motion to the chairs in front of us. “You know about the fae royal war?”
Nodding, I sat down next to him while the others circled around us.
“Faerie started shrinking, and the royal families were slaughtering each other over what remained.” Syris laughed once, but there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it. “That’s the story they told the rest of the world, at least.”
His eyes dropped back to the blade. For a second, genuine revulsion crossed his face.
“This,” he said quietly, “is the real reason the war started.”
“Long ago,” Syris began, rubbing one hand over his mouth like he was trying to wipe away the memory before speaking it aloud, “Faerie used to choose someone to speak for the land itself. A protector. A voice.”
The room stayed completely still around him. Even Ternin stopped fidgeting.
“When I was a boy,” Syris continued quietly, “that person was my uncle.” His gaze drifted to the blade again, and the thing twitched faintly under his stare.
“My uncle learned how to commune with the land deeper than anyone before him. He learned how to guide the magic that flowed through Faerie.” Syris’s lips curled bitterly. “And then he learned things no one should’ve ever known and did things no one should’ve ever tried.”
I found myself leaning forward without realizing it. Syris never talked about Faerie or his family.
Hell, most days he acted like his past didn’t exist at all.
“The magic of Faerie was never meant to be controlled,” he said. “It’s wild. Emotional. Alive.” His fingers flexed against his knees. “That’s why most modern fae magic centers around illusions like glamour and perception. Those are easier to direct.”
His expression darkened. “But creation…” he murmured. “Creation is dangerous.”
The blade vibrated again. This time, everyone noticed, and Syris’s eyes sharpened instantly.
“My uncle believed my father shouldn’t have been king.” The words came out clipped now. “He thought rulership should belong to the person closest to the land itself. The one Faerie spoke to.”
His jaw tightened hard enough the muscle ticked.
“So he twisted what he learned.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
“He bent the will of the land, forcing Faerie’s magic into shapes it was never supposed to take.” Syris’s voice roughened with disgust. “He distorted creatures. Twisted living things into weapons. Corrupted the magic itself by trying to seize power.”
Ternin lowered his eyes. Easton’s arms folded tighter across his chest. Even Manic had gone grimly silent.
“My father killed him,” Syris said flatly. “With his final breath.”
A long silence followed that, but Syris didn’t stop there.
“The problem was…” His fingers dragged through his hair. “The infection had already spread by then.”
His stare landed on the blade again like he wanted to smash it into dust.
“Members of the royal court had already begun experimenting with the magic too. Nobles. Council members. Those of us from the royal line.” His mouth twisted sharply. “Everyone wanted more power.”
The blade gave another small hum.
“This,” he said, pointing at it like it physically offended him, “was the beginning of Faerie’s collapse.”
Nobody interrupted him. Nobody even breathed too loudly.
“Faerie shrinking year after year?” His bitter laugh echoed. “That wasn’t natural. It was punishment. Punishment for our greed and deception.” His shoulders sagged heavily.
“The land retaliated against us for forcing our will onto its magic.”
The air around us felt stagnant and lifeless, and I stared at the blade differently now.
Before, it had been dangerous, but now it felt hungry and alive in the worst possible way. Like it wanted to consume.
Suddenly, I understood why the damn thing adapted every time I tested it. It behaved like the person who’d created it. Greedy. Never satisfied.
“How the fuck did something like this end up here?” I asked finally.
“He kept records,” he muttered, gripping his hands together tight. “A book.”
My head snapped up. “A book?”
“He claimed the land gave it to him.” Syris scoffed harshly. “But it wasn’t divine knowledge. It was just records of his experiments. Spellwork. Formulas. Notes on how to manipulate Faerie’s magic.”
Easton immediately stepped forward, asking the question I wanted to know most. “Where is it now?”
Syris’s face pinched tightly, his shoulders slumping. “I don’t know.” That answer frustrated him almost as much as it frustrated me. “I don’t fucking know.”
“The last royal battle destroyed most of the palace.” His fingers drummed restlessly against his leg. “My nanny had already smuggled me out by then, and I never saw the book again.”
He trailed off, lost in thought, but my brain had already moved ahead.
Two weapons existed—the blade and this gun Manshu had—so someone had the knowledge. Someone knew how to mess around with this magic.
“Did he have any apprentices? People he would’ve taught this to?”
Syris shook his head. “Not that I knew of. He tried to keep it to himself, using it as a bargaining chip with those in the high council and the royal family, those he could manipulate for more power.”
Which means someone has this book. It made sense. Especially after all the stuff we’d seen lately.
“Can you stop it?” I asked sharply.
Syris immediately shook his head. “No.”
The word landed hard, and I didn't want to believe it. There had to be something we could do to combat this.
“Once the magic is infused,” he explained, “it has to burn itself out naturally…” His eyes flicked toward the blade. “…or be released.”
He lifted his hand and hovered it over the blade, which began to tremble violently. It moved as if it were trying to escape and attack his hand.
“Holding the magic inside an object traps it,” Syris continued quietly. “And because the power source is finite, it feeds on outside magic to sustain itself.”
My stomach tightened immediately. That explained why the experimental supes burned out so violently as well as why the turned ones lasted longer.
The fae magic had been consuming the magic sustaining their altered bodies, and once the magic ran dry, so did they.
“We don’t have time to let it burn itself out,” I muttered. “And I’m not letting it feed on people.”
Syris gave a slow nod. “Then the magic has to be released.”
“How?” I scratched my head, feeling like I was back to square one. At least I was working with better information this time, though.
“Find the book,” he said quietly. “And speak the release spell written inside it.”
I stared at him. That was the solution?
Find a centuries-old lost royal artifact somewhere in existence before a terrorist organization weaponized corrupted fae magic against the Syndicate?
Fan-fucking-tastic. My hand dragged down my face roughly. Oh, Ezra is going to love this.
“But we have to do this, Calix. We have to stop this no matter what.” Syris leaned forward, desperation cracking through his composure for the first time since the conversation started. “We cannot let this spread.”
His hands clenched tightly together.
“If more people learn how to use this magic…” His eyes closed briefly. “There won’t be a Faerie left to save. Then the magic will start to gobble up every supe creature here, ruining everything we’ve built until there is nothing left.”
The room went dead silent again, the seriousness of the situation setting in.
Syris looked directly at me, jaw set, eyes burning.
“We’re the only ones who can stop it.”
I looked back at the blade resting on the table, its surface catching the light with that familiar warped shimmer. It almost looked alive now that I knew what it really was. The faint pulse of magic running through it felt less like power and more like something breathing. Waiting.
Syris watched it too, his mouth drawn tight with old grief and fresh disgust, and for once none of us joked. None of us pushed. The weight sitting in the room had settled deep into everyone’s bones.
He was right.
If this spread any further, if more people got their hands on weapons like this, then everything we’d built would start cracking apart.
Humans. Supes. The Syndicate. All of it.
Racking my brain as to where I should start, I realized I had the perfect situation already lined up.
A slow grin tugged at the corner of my mouth because unlike everyone else in the room, my mind had already moved ahead to tomorrow.
I already had a plan in place, the perfect stepping stone to untangling this ball of yarn.
Ternin noticed first. “Oh no,” he muttered, though he smiled down at me with pride. “That’s the smile. The one Rayla always got before she was about to fuck shit up.”
Manic barked a laugh under his breath. Easton pinched the bridge of his nose. Syris just narrowed his eyes at me knowingly.
I leaned against the table, arms folding loosely as excitement sparked beneath my skin. Tomorrow was going to be a bloody show.
Manshu thought he was hunting us. Thought he had some ancient weapon that made him untouchable. The idiot had no idea what was coming for him.
My grin widened slowly.
I was going to take that weapon from him and make him talk. And after that, I was going to make him pay for what he did to Olivia.
Tomorrow, Manshu was going to have his day of penance. We’d see if he repented for his sins because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t make it out alive.