Chapter 3 #2
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “I just… never thought it would come to this.”
He stepped past us and approached the edge of the pool, kneeling at the stone lip. From the inner folds of his robe, he withdrew a smooth, thumb-sized wardstone. It glowed faintly with pale lavender etched with silver veins.
“This is how we stabilize the towers,” he said, dipping the stone into the shimmering water.
The moment it touched the surface, the pool rippled outward in perfect circles. The glow from the water pulsed brighter around the stone, the same veins of black receding for a breath, just a breath, before surging back, darker than before.
“You see?” he said, voice low. “It still works. But it’s weaker now. The stones need more time to charge. The energy doesn’t stay as long. And the tower connections—” He glanced at Zander, who was watching with furrowed brows. “They’re... brittle.”
“This pool connects all the towers?” I asked.
Quinn nodded. “Each tower has a node that’s linked through here, like veins feeding from the heart. The pool is the source. But the blood’s running dry.”
Zander folded his arms. “Because the warders are dying.”
“Yes,” Quinn said. “The symbiosis between the pool and the warders—it’s more than magical. It’s living. We draw from it, and it draws from us. But the balance is gone. There are too few of us left to sustain it.”
I stepped closer to the water, watching the way the black veins pulsed again, slow and poisonous. “The deaths of the warders started this corrosion?”
Quinn’s jaw tightened. “Yes. And now it’s feeding on itself.”
He looked at us then.
“If we don’t find a way to replenish the pool... the towers will fall. And with them, so will Warriath.”
“The introduction of the commoners. It was always about the pool. The king didn’t care about the other guilds,” I said.
Quinn shrugged. “Possibly.”
Zander stepped forward slowly, his boots echoing against the stone floor as he approached the edge of the pool. The light from the water reflected in his eyes—sapphire, violet, moonlit silver—shifting like a dream trapped beneath glass.
Without a word, he knelt and reached out.
His fingers dipped into the iridescent surface, and the pool responded instantly.
A pulse shot outward from the contact point, concentric waves rolling across the liquid as though the pool itself had drawn breath.
The black veins near his hand recoiled, pulling back like shadows fleeing from light.
The water glowed brighter around him, warming from within, casting dancing reflections on the cavern walls.
Quinn gasped behind us. “You… you’re a direct descendant. A true halfling.”
Zander stood, his jaw tense, his shoulders tight with a truth he no longer bothered to hide. “I am,” he said quietly. “The king isn’t my blooded father.”
Quinn stared.
Zander glanced at me. “The fae prisoner beneath the palace? He is.”
“A full fae…” Quinn breathed, stunned. “There’s a full fae in the castle?”
Zander nodded once.
Without waiting, I stepped forward and knelt beside him, my heart pounding as I reached toward the pool.
The moment my fingers skimmed the surface, a flare of pure, blinding light burst outward… stronger, deeper. The water shimmered with a brilliant pulse of gold and violet, and the dark veins curled back in every direction, retreating further than they had with Zander.
The glow wrapped around my hand like it knew me.
Like it recognized me.
Quinn’s jaw dropped. He took a step back, breath caught in his throat. “You… You’re not just a halfling. You’re fae royalty.”
I pulled my hand back, the last of the light fading slowly beneath the surface.
“We need you to keep this to yourself,” Zander said, his voice sharp but calm.
Quinn blinked, still stunned. “I—If anyone finds out I showed you this… I could be executed.”
“And if anyone finds out who we are,” I added, standing beside Zander, “we won’t survive long enough to stop what’s coming.”
Quinn looked between us, jaw tight, expression torn.
Then he nodded.
“I’ll keep your secret… if you keep mine.” He glanced at the pool, still faintly glowing where we’d touched it. “No one else knows how bad it’s gotten. And if the elders won’t listen... maybe the dragons will.”
Zander extended a hand. “Then we’re agreed.”
Quinn took it. “We were never here.”
“Exactly,” I said, casting one last glance at the fading light of the pool.
The glow still lingered in my veins as we turned from the chamber, but it wasn’t a comfort, it was a hollowing.
I felt… drained.
Not like after battle or training, but as if something inside me had been gently, deliberately taken.
My magic didn’t spark at my fingertips the way it usually did.
Instead, it felt like it had sunken deeper into my bones, quiet, slumbering, as if the pool had touched a part of me I didn’t fully understand.
Zander must have noticed. He brushed his hand against mine as we started back through the tunnel behind Quinn, his silence speaking louder than any question.
I didn’t say anything. Not yet.
The path seemed longer on the return. The flickering runes on the ceiling seemed dimmer now, or maybe we were just seeing things differently after what we’d learned.
Zander’s voice broke the quiet. “Tell me about the pool, Quinn. How did it get here?”
Quinn didn’t answer at first. His steps slowed, as if the weight of the answer itself demanded reverence.
“It was part of the treaty,” he said finally. “When the first alliance between the fae and humans was forged. As a sign of good faith, the fae gifted the pool to Warriath.”
Zander lifted a brow. “A magical baptism.”
Quinn nodded. “The first generation of human leaders, those selected to bind themselves to fae partners, bathed in the pool before their wedding rites.”
Zander sighed softly. “It gave them magic. Temporarily. Just enough to allow for magically endowed children.”
“Yes,” Quinn confirmed. “And there are texts… old, mostly incomplete. But they infer that human mothers would return to the pool during pregnancy. To strengthen the magic. To ensure the child would… have power.”
I blinked, realization tightening in my chest. “This is our origin story.”
Zander turned to me.
“This is where halflings were born,” I said softly. “The reason our species even exists. The first generation created by the pool’s magic and the fae’s blood.”
Quinn’s voice was reverent now. “The pool of Warriath didn’t just defend the realm. It created the bridge between our two kinds.”
We walked in silence after that, our footsteps echoing through the stone, haunted by the past, and the crumbling future beneath our feet.