Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
The stone passage twisted sharply as we descended deeper into the castle’s underbelly, torches flickering low and casting our shadows in long, warped patterns across the walls.
The air was damp, laced with the heavy scent of old earth and colder secrets.
Above us, the sounds of chaos still echoed, shouting, boots, what sounded like furniture breaking. Remy and Tae were certainly committed to their roles.
Zander walked ahead of me, steps light, eyes sweeping corners before we passed.
The corridor opened into a rounded chamber with a thick iron door—unlocked.
I raised a brow. “He’s not even guarded?”
Zander gave a tight smile. “It seems he is free to leave as long as he wears a mask, but I’ve made inquiries since we met. He rarely leaves the castle.”
He pushed the door open, and we stepped inside the elaborate suite.
The walls were draped in rich silks of crimson and gold, embroidered with ancient fae sigils that shimmered faintly under the light. A carved wooden table sat in the center, covered in crystal decanters and books written in languages I couldn’t begin to name.
And lounging like a bored noble in a cushioned chair, sat Alahathrial.
His robes clung to him like water, silver and black threaded through with veins of gold, too fine for even Warriath’s court. He looked more like a high priest than a prisoner.
But his face…
He was tired.
The lines beneath his eyes, the subtle wear to his voice as he lifted his head, revealed the weight of centuries or something near enough.
He looked at Zander the moment we stepped inside.
And didn’t look away.
“Prince Zander,” he said, voice like smooth stone. “To what do I owe the honor of a midnight visit?”
“I am being visited by… something. It invades my dreams.”
Alahathrial stared at me for a moment. “Dream walkers are rare but they exist. Be wary if one of the dark ones has targeted you.”
“A dream walker? I thought they were extinct,” Zander said.
“As did I,” Alahathrial said.
My eyes narrowed. “He is invading my dreams to learn more about me. About my life.”
“Yes.”
I stepped forward. “Every time we turn around, we are thrust into some kind of intrigue. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s the court, the Order, or one of the new sects trying to gain power on the continent. Why are we at the center of this? Why are the Blood Fae watching us?”
Alahathrial turned his head slowly, his gaze settling fully on Zander now, almost reverent.
“It is not because you are a prince,” he said softly.
Zander went still beside me.
“It is because you are my son,” Alahathrial continued, “and you have inherited my father’s… gifts.”
The words rang in the chamber like a spell just cast.
And everything shifted.
Zander took a step back, the muscle in his jaw twitching. His voice was ragged with disbelief.
“That’s a lie. There is no way you’re my father.”
I turned to Alahathrial, ready to deny it right alongside him. To laugh it off, to rip the words apart before they could take root.
But then I really looked.
At the lines of Alahathrial’s face. The structure of his jaw. The shape of his eyes, those gold-flecked lavender eyes I’d only ever seen in one other person.
Zander.
The same quiet intensity. The same edge of knowing too much.
And that power, it had been thought lost for generations. A power buried in myth. Until him.
Alahathrial’s expression didn’t shift. He didn’t gloat. He didn’t even smile. He just… waited.
“Son,” he said again, his voice steady.
Zander laughed, bitter and hollow. “That’s impossible.”
Alahathrial stepped forward, his hands folded calmly in front of him, his presence too large for the room, even in this cage of velvet and carved stone.
“No,” he said, “it’s simply been hidden. Like I was.”
Zander didn’t speak.
So Alahathrial did.
“Your mother,” he began quietly, “was the Queen of Warriath. A formidable woman. Fierce. Loyal. Bound to a man who lacked the bloodline the kingdom demanded. King Rayne is powerful politically, but magically… lacking. At least for the power he was looking for.”
Zander flinched, like the words were too real.
“The king and queen had three heirs,” Alahathrial continued.
“But the council grew impatient that they could not stop the Blood Fae incursions. The queen was desperate. Your…father grew resentful. And I—” he paused, eyes meeting Zander’s, “I have always observed the comings and goings of the royal house. I knew your mother from a distance at first. Then closer. I wore his face when the time was right.”
Zander’s hands curled into fists.
“She didn’t know at first,” Alahathrial said gently. “But in time… she did.”
“You’re lying,” Zander said, the words tight, as if they’d been dragged from his throat.
“I’m not,” Alahathrial said. “It’s why you have my eyes. Why your power runs deeper than any heir in centuries.”
He stepped closer, but not too close.
“You weren’t born to inherit the throne, Zander. You were born to open a door to something far older, something forgotten.”
He turned his head then, eyes landing on me.
“But it’s not just you they need.”
His voice was quieter but heavier.
“It’s her too.”
And suddenly, everything I thought I understood cracked beneath my feet.
The truth wasn’t just inconvenient.
It was shattering.
Zander’s face twisted, rage flickering behind his eyes like lightning before a storm.
“You expect me to believe this?” he snapped, voice cutting like a blade. “That the Queen of Warriath, my mother, let a fae imposter into her bed? That she knew?”
Alahathrial didn’t flinch. He watched Zander with unnerving calm, like every outburst was a necessary step toward an inevitable truth.
“You’re lying,” Zander spat. “My father would be appalled.”
Alahathrial gave the faintest nod, his expression unreadable. “He knew.”
Zander reeled back like he’d been struck.
“King Rayne was many things, ambitious, shrewd, deeply aware of his shortcomings. When it became clear he could not produce the heir he wanted, he asked me if I could. I confirmed that my bloodline had what he needed, but that such power could only be bestowed on a blooded child of mine.”
Zander laughed once. Short, hollow, furious. “No. No, he wouldn’t—”
“He asked me to do this,” Alahathrial said, his voice soft but unwavering. “I have fathered many children among the commoners. That is why magic is thick in the villages surrounding Warriath, why gifts appear in bloodlines that should have faded generations ago.”
My chest tightened.
“My blood,” Alahathrial continued, “has filtered into the Outer Kingdoms, the lowborn, the border regions.”
He turned his eyes on Zander once more, and for the first time, there was something reverent in his tone.
“But you are the firstborn of a true queen. One with a powerful bloodline.”
Zander staggered a half-step back, one hand at his mouth like he might be sick.
He looked at me—lost, betrayed, burning from the inside out, and I had no words.
Because I didn’t know what this made me.
If he was born to open a door, was I the key? The lock? The curse?
My thoughts raced, but I couldn’t stop staring at him.
Zander’s voice cracked when he finally spoke again.
“So my siblings are only… half.”
And the weight of what he was beginning to accept settled over all of us like ash after a fire.
For the first time since we’d stepped into that velvet-draped prison, Alahathrial looked… uncomfortable.
His gaze shifted, no longer piercing Zander’s but glancing away toward the corner of the chamber, where the torches cast flickering shadows across the floor.
He exhaled slowly. “Your father… King Rayne… could only produce sons.”
Zander stiffened, every muscle drawn tight.
“But your mother,” Alahathrial continued, voice quieter now, almost reverently, “she wanted a daughter. A little girl.”
His gaze lifted again, this time not with power, but memory.
“I know you won’t believe this,” he said, directing it to Zander, but I felt the weight of it too, “but I loved your mother.”
Zander flinched.
“I visited her often after your birth,” Alahathrial went on, each word slower now, more careful.
“Always wearing your father’s face. At first, it was to ensure her safety.
To see you grow. To protect what we had created.
But… she began to understand. She saw through the magic. And she did not turn me away.”
He paused. The silence between us stretched, thick with too much truth.
“She confronted me. She asked who I was. Why I came.”
Zander’s fists curled at his sides, his breathing shallow.
“I told her everything,” Alahathrial said, his voice fragile now, as if he were afraid the memory might break.
“And she didn’t scream. She didn’t strike me.
She said… she loved our talks. That she didn’t have that kind of relationship with your father.
That she’d grown used to being seen, but never known. ”
“And you did as she asked?” Zander rasped, something hollow blooming in his voice.
Alahathrial nodded.
“She begged me for a daughter. And I gave her one. A gift born of love.”
He glanced at me then, and every hair on my arms rose.
“I gifted your bloodline with a sister. One born not from duty, or manipulation, but from desire. One who will be powerful in her own right when she is grown.”
Zander staggered a half-step. “Elara.”
Alahathrial nodded again, softer now.
“You are the dark,” he said, his voice strange, almost like a benediction. “The key that is needed now. She is the light. She will be the balance.”
My heart thundered.
“The balance of what?” I asked.
“The war. Both of you have dark gifts. There is a reason you are… attracted to one another. You are two halves of one whole.”
“What does that mean?”
Alahathrial turned back to Zander, his expression solemn now, stripped of all the quiet arrogance he’d worn like a second skin.
“You were born to open a door,” he said, voice low, like each word was being laid with careful weight. “Not to a kingdom. Not to a throne. But to the Fae Sanctuary itself.”
Zander didn’t speak. He just stared, his entire body tense, coiled like Hein right before a dive.
“But,” Alahathrial continued, and his gaze shifted.
To me.
My breath caught in my throat.
“It’s not just you they need,” he said. “The door won’t open with one bloodline alone. It needs that of another. One far darker than yours.”
He took a step forward, his voice dipping lower, heavier.
“A second bloodline is required. One thought lost. One feared more than any other.”
His eyes locked onto mine then, lavender and ancient, and I felt the power ripple through the air like lightning crawling over skin.
“You,” he said, his voice reverent and grim, “are the one the prophecy fears.”
My mouth went dry. “Why?” I whispered.
“You are the destroyer.”
The room felt like it had dropped out from under me.
Zander inhaled deeply beside me.
But I couldn’t look at him.
I couldn’t look at anything except Alahathrial, whose words still echoed in my chest like a curse I hadn’t asked for.
Destroyer.
And for the first time since my entry to the guild—
I didn’t know if I was meant to survive this.
Or burn it all down.