Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
The words still echoed in my ears.
You are the destroyer.
I should’ve been frozen, terrified. But something in me moved instead—needed more.
More truth. More answers.
I turned to Alahathrial, my voice tight and raw. “What did you mean… Zander’s the key? The king’s been searching for him? Why?”
Alahathrial’s gaze softened—not with pity, but with the weight of revelation. “Zander was born to gain access to the Fae Sanctuary,” he said, like it was the most obvious truth in the world.
Zander stiffened beside me.
“It’s the only way to end this war,” Alahathrial continued.
“To recapture the Blood Throne, or what it was before the dark magic defiled it. The throne was never meant to be a seat of corruption. It was sacred. Meant to bridge two worlds. But once it was touched by that old destructive magic, twisted and buried, it became what you know now.”
He looked toward the wall, as if he could see beyond it. “They call it the Blood Throne now. But that wasn’t its name. Not before it was desecrated.”
I stepped forward. “How do we reach the Fae Sanctuary?”
“I don’t know.” Alahathrial admitted it without hesitation, without shame. “Only that it takes two bloodlines. Two ancient magics.”
He looked between us.
“The power of Dark Flame…” His eyes rested on me. “And that of a Storm Reaper.”
Zander let out a breath, slow and measured. “You think our magic combined can open it?”
“I don’t think,” Alahathrial said, pacing slightly now. “I hope. You’ve both already done what should be impossible. You’re bonded to dragons that should have refused you. You’ve survived trials that were meant to break you. Your magics… are converging.”
I glanced at Zander. “What would happen if we merged them?”
“Dark Flame and Storm Magic?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Something violent. Or something divine.”
We stood in silence for a moment, the air charged with too many unknowns.
“Could it tear the fabric between the realms?” I asked quietly.
“Could it mend it?” Zander countered.
But neither of us had answers.
Alahathrial stopped pacing, hands folding before him like a priest before an altar. “When the time is right… you’ll know what to do.”
It wasn’t comforting.
But something inside me believed him.
And that was worse.
I stepped closer to Alahathrial, the tension in my shoulders refusing to ease. “You’ve watched the courts for hundreds of years. You must have insight we don’t.”
He arched a brow, but didn’t deny it.
“What do you know about the new sects?” I asked. “The ones rising against the crown. Aligning with the Order.”
Alahathrial exhaled, the sound like wind through brittle leaves. “The Blood Fae likely created one,” he said. “But not both.”
Zander frowned. “Then who—”
“They used a familiar tactic,” Alahathrial interrupted softly. “One I’ve seen before.”
He began to pace again, the hem of his robe whispering across the stone.
“They infiltrate with whispers, twist truths just enough to splinter unity. They don’t always need violence to break a kingdom. Just fear. Just division.”
He looked at me, his eyes haunted now. “That’s how they split the people of the Fae Isle. None of us realized what they had done until it was too late. More than half our people turned dark, corrupted by what they thought was power. But it was only rot wearing gold.”
I swallowed the tight knot rising in my throat. “That’s awful.”
He nodded. “It was.”
The room felt colder suddenly.
“But,” he said, turning to me fully now, “we need to worry less about the sects… and more about your lineage.”
I stiffened. “Why?”
His expression shifted, subtle, but something about it made my skin crawl. Like a storm building just beyond sight.
“Because your bloodline is older than mine,” he said. “Older than Zander’s. It was erased for a reason. Buried so deeply, even the sanctuary stopped fearing it would resurface.”
Zander glanced at me.
Alahathrial continued, voice grave. “You are not just the destroyer the prophecy fears, Ashe. You are the reckoning they hoped never woke.”
And just like that, the fire in my veins burned colder.
“What is my role in this?”
Alahathrial stared at me, his shoulders straight but his face pale with strain. For all his power, he looked older now—like speaking these truths cost him something.
“You ask about your role in the prophecy,” he said, voice soft but heavy. “Well… prophecies, I should say. There’s more than one. More than a dozen, if we’re honest.”
I blinked, startled. “And they all call me the destroyer?”
He gave a grim smile. “Yes. But not all for the same reasons. Only your final act will reveal which prophecy is true. Until then, you walk between them.”
I swallowed hard, my pulse thudding at my throat. “Do you know what they say? All of them?”
Alahathrial nodded.
“One names you as the only being who can bring the dragons to bear again, not just command them, but unite them, as they were in the earliest wars.”
Zander’s brows pulled tight beside me, but he said nothing.
“Another,” Alahathrial continued, eyes on me, “says you’ll destroy this kingdom. That almost every living thing on this continent will burn in your wake.”
My chest hollowed.
“And another still,” he went on, “claims you will destroy the Blood Fae and bring order from their ashes.”
He paused.
“Some prophesize your death,” he added, quieter now. “Sacrifice. A martyr’s end. The only one who can pay the cost of the war that’s coming.”
I stared at him, numb. “How do we discern which one is true?”
His eyes were deep, old. “The destroyer has many stories written about her. But there’s one variable that remains the same in every version.”
“What?” I whispered.
“You are a Storm Reaper, bonded to the Sentinel.”
My breath caught.
“Your dragon,” he said, “has many names. Some call her Vorthiya. Which means the many in the old tongue. Others, The Warden of Flame. But in every version, she is The Sentinel. I’m not sure why.”
His voice dropped lower.
“Her faith in you is the difference between one outcome or another.”
My lips parted. “What are you saying?”
“If she doesn’t trust you,” Alahathrial said, his gaze piercing, “then you turn against her. And the darker prophecies come into play.”
I stared at him, heart thundering. “So I need her to trust me?”
He shook his head slowly. “I wish it were that simple. You need far more than that… but that’s all I can give you today.”
He turned away, voice thinner now. “I must rest.”
Zander didn’t say a word.
He just turned quickly and walked out.
I followed, my boots silent on the stone as the door to Alahathrial’s suite closed behind us.
The prophecy was no longer some distant warning.
It was a shadow that followed me step for step.
And Kaelith’s silence had never felt so loud.
Zander didn’t say a word as we left Alahathrial’s chamber behind us, but I could feel the fury bleeding off him like heat from sun-scorched steel.
He stalked ahead of me through the narrow corridor, his jaw clenched so tight I was surprised he hadn’t cracked a tooth. When we emerged into the colder, moonlit stretch of the west wing, he stopped, bracing both hands against the stone wall as if he needed something solid to hold on to.
I stepped beside him, quiet. Waiting.
Then his voice broke the silence, low and sharp.
“He used her.”
He didn’t look at me, just stared at the stone, his knuckles white.
“My father let another man, let that man into her bed. And for what? An heir? A stronger bloodline?” His voice faltered, jagged with disbelief. “She deserved more than that. She deserved a choice.”
I said nothing. The pain in his voice was too raw, too real.
“She was…” He swallowed, finally turning his face to me.
“She was kind. Loyal. Fierce when she needed to be. Not just the crown draped in velvet. She used to sit with the lowborn children during harvest feasts, braid their hair, tell them stories about the first dragons. She never made anyone feel small.”
His voice faltered. “She always looked at me like I mattered. Even if I wasn’t firstborn, I would always be hers.”
I could feel my heart shattering for him, piece by piece.
Zander exhaled slowly, his hands dropping from the wall, fists curling at his sides. “My father always seemed wary of me. Especially after I bonded Hein.”
He gave a hollow laugh. “He tried to act proud, but I saw it. Like he was waiting for something to go wrong. Like I was holding power I didn’t deserve.”
He turned away again, pacing now.
“But when my magic manifested… gods, it was the only time he looked at me like he was truly impressed. Like I had finally become what he’d paid for.”
Zander’s voice grew softer, colder.
“But it wasn’t pride like he had for Darmon, Dorian, or Theron.” His mouth twisted. “Now I know why.”
I stepped closer, wishing I had words that could heal what centuries of silence had broken.
But all I could do was stand beside him, shoulder brushing his, as the truth settled between us like dust on an unmarked grave.
I watched him, chest still heaving, eyes cast toward the stone floor like it might offer answers he couldn’t find in bloodlines or buried truths.
Everything about him screamed grief. Anger.
I couldn’t take his pain away.
But I could try to carry it with him.
“Zander,” I whispered, stepping closer.
He didn’t move. Didn’t look at me.
So I wrapped my arms around him, slow and careful, pressing my cheek against the back of his shoulder.
He was tense beneath my hands, like his whole body was a blade pulled taut, waiting to snap.
I didn’t care. I held him anyway.
I was still reeling too from what Alahathrial had told me. That I was the destroyer. That my destiny came in shades of ash and fire.
Every version of my future felt like a death sentence for something or someone.
But I wasn’t ready to surrender to old prophecies written in ink and fear before I ever took my first breath.
I wanted more.
I wanted to choose.
And in that moment, I wanted to choose him.
But he pulled away.
His hands dropped to mine gently, not harsh, but final.
“I can’t,” he said quietly, voice rough as gravel. “Not right now.”
Then he turned and walked down the corridor, the sound of his footsteps echoing like a door slamming shut.
And I felt his pain like it was stitched into my bones.
I sank to the floor, unable to breathe through the hollow ache blooming in my chest.
Block the bond, Kaelith’s voice slid into my mind, low and firm.
With you? I asked, panicked.
No, she said gently. With him.
I hesitated.
But the pain was too real, too raw.
So I listened.
I closed my eyes and walled off the thread that connected us, the one that pulsed like a second heartbeat, and cut it clean.
The silence that followed was immediate.
And suffocating.
For the first time since the Trials, I felt completely, utterly alone.