Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Zander turned to us, his expression unreadable beneath the weight of what we’d all just witnessed.
“Come with me,” he said simply, and without another word, he turned and led us across the Ascension Grounds.
We followed him in silence, our boots crunching over gravel and stone as we reentered the barracks.
But instead of stopping in the main room where our bunks and gear were kept, Zander moved through it, toward the narrow hallway beyond.
We rarely used it, just a small corridor that led to a few storage rooms and back exits.
He stopped at the first door on the right and pushed it open.
Inside was a modest space, but compared to the barracks, it felt almost… lavish. A bed in the corner. A sturdy table and four chairs. A window, small but real, overlooking the southern edge of the grounds.
“I’ve assigned you this private room,” Zander said, stepping aside so we could see. “It has a table and chairs, you can use it as a meeting room.”
“Or a private bedroom,” Tae said with a grin, his eyes locking on the lone bed.
Zander’s mouth twitched, but he nodded. “It’s a squad leader’s room. In the interim, that is me. So until an official leader is assigned, you can all use it as needed.”
Cordelle immediately ducked out and returned a moment later with several books in hand, because of course he did.
“We should start researching poisons and spells,” he said, flipping the book open as he dropped into a seat beside Zander. “The king’s madness… it’s not natural. It can’t be.”
Zander nodded and sat beside him, already scanning the open pages.
Jax and Ferrula, unsurprisingly, made a beeline for the bed and dropped onto it without hesitation, Ferrula stretching like she’d claimed it permanently.
It was obvious they wouldn’t be digging through any books.
“Maybe,” I said slowly, glancing between them, “we should have Jax, Ferrula, and Teren go speak with Meri. She may have some ideas. I’m sure the healers are treating the king. Maybe she’s seen something.”
Jax sat up immediately. “Fine by me. I hate reading.”
Ferrula bounced off the bed with a grin. “You’re speaking my language.”
Teren chuckled and joined them at the door. “I love meeting new people.”
Tae laughed. “Especially the female ones.”
Teren winked. Then the three of them disappeared down the hall in seconds, leaving the rest of us in the quiet room.
Cordelle passed me, Riven, Tae, and Naia each a book before he flipped to another page. “Some of these are on fae bloodlines, but with this many of us, we can look for our lost bloodlines.”
“Ours?” I asked him.
He nodded. “The commoners all have noble roots. Maybe you are not the only one who has originated from a bloodline thought lost.”
“That makes sense.” I turned the next page in my book, and scanned the contents.
The book was heavy in my hands, the leather cover cracked and softened by age.
Cordelle had stacked several tomes on the table before he and Zander became fully engrossed in theories about magical corruption and psychotropic poisons.
I picked one at random and found myself thumbing through pages yellowed with time and ink that bled slightly at the edges.
The Legacy of the Unifier.
The script was more elegant than most texts I’d read, written in the flowing, deliberate hand of a royal historian, no doubt. But despite its ornate phrasing, the story was unmistakable.
The first King of Warriath and his dragon.
The Unifier.
The first king hadn’t been born into power.
He was chosen, by the dragons, and by the fractured human kingdoms desperate for peace.
The book detailed his heritage from a fae mother and human father.
His struggles to bond with the dragon leader.
A great golden beast that was later referred to as the Unifier.
His rider, the first king was a war tactician and a leader who commanded the loyalty of nobles and dragons alike.
It spoke of how he’d crossed the Great Divide to meet with the Fae Elders, how he knelt before them not as a conqueror, but as a supplicant.
To broker a deal for more fae mothers or fathers.
He’d returned days later, riding his golden dragon, with a pact signed in blood and dragon fire.
Together, he and the dragons had forged what the book called the Accord of Flame and Crown, a contract between man and dragon, brokered to protect the continent from foreign empires and Blood Fae incursions.
But what caught me, what held me, was the repeated reference to the sacrifice.
It came up again and again.
The price the first king paid.
The blood that sealed the pact.
The sacrifice made to protect the balance.
But nowhere… nowhere did it say what that sacrifice was.
I turned pages faster, scanning for clarity, for truth, but the farther I read, the more obscure the references became. No names. No specifics. Just the lingering echo of something lost, something the dragons remembered, but the humans had chosen to forget.
A knot twisted in my chest.
Because if there was a cost to forging a kingdom with dragons then maybe there was a cost to keeping one.
Cordelle flipped through his third book, a large one with a cracked emerald cover and pages so delicate they whispered when turned.
He hunched over it like it might vanish if he blinked, muttering softly as he skimmed lines in the old dialect.
I recognized the way his fingers trembled, not from fear, but excitement.
“Gods,” he breathed. “Ashe—look at this.”
I leaned toward him so I could glance at the text he was reading. Zander leaned forward too, the weariness in his eyes sharpening with curiosity.
Cordelle turned the book toward us. The page was inked with curling script, and though the language was archaic, enough of it had been translated in the margins to make the meaning clear.
At the top, scrawled in dark, near-faded ink:
From ash and storm, the Stormborn shall rise. Blood of two thrones, heart divided. Marked by ruin, gifted by blood. One shall bring unity, or the kingdom’s final breath.
Beneath that was more:
Born of what should not be,
A child of both hollow and flame,
Neither wholly fae, nor man,
Storm-crowned and soul-shackled.
They will wield power unbidden,
Call dragons with voice alone.
If unclaimed, they shall fall.
If chosen, they shall rule or ruin all.
Cordelle looked up, his eyes wide. “It’s an ancient prophecy.”
I stared at the ink, at the curling letters that felt like chains wrapping around my ribs.
“It’s describing a fae,” I said slowly. “A powerful one.”
Cordelle nodded. “Yes, but not just any. It says descendant of the Blood Throne.”
Zander sat straighter. “That’s not possible. The Blood Fae are infertile. They’ve been for generations, one of the reasons they seek immortality.”
“Exactly,” Cordelle murmured, fingers still pressed to the text. “Which means either the prophecy is flawed… or something has changed.”
Or… someone lied.
My thoughts spun, pieces beginning to slot together too fast, too loud.
Stormborn. Flame-gifted. Marked by ruin.
A child of both thrones.
Dark and Light.
The impossible made flesh.
Zander’s gaze flicked to me, too sharp, too knowing.
But I was already staring at the prophecy again. At that last line.
If chosen, they shall rule or ruin all.
“I think it’s Seraveth.”
“Who is that?” Zander asked.
“Kaelith’s first rider. She is related to the Blood King and she is a Storm Reaper. Just a much more powerful one.”
The room had grown darker as the sun dropped beyond the hills, the only light now coming from the small crystal attached to a wall sconce. Its glow flickered like dragon flame, casting pale-gold across the pages scattered before us.
I sat beside Cordelle, eyes still fixed on the ancient prophecy while the others gathered close.
“We need to talk about Seraveth,” I said, voice low but certain.
Cordelle looked up. “The Blood King’s general?”
“She wasn’t always,” I said. “All Dark Fae began as Light. The Blood Court was born from corruption, not creation. Seraveth was once like them. Like us. She chose darkness… or it claimed her.”
Zander’s eyes narrowed. “If the prophecy speaks of a ‘Stormborn’ rising to rule or ruin the kingdom, then she fits half that description.”
“She’s powerful,” I agreed. “She was one of the first to steal a dragon egg and force a bond… that makes her part of this. She might be the one who ruins us.”
Cordelle tapped his fingers against the edge of the book. “But the prophecy talks about a child of both thrones. Not just darkness. Not just light. Someone between.”
“But what if she was meant to be that child?” Zander asked. “What if she was the first attempt, the one who failed?”
The silence settled like ash over the room.
I rubbed at my arms, chilled despite the closeness of the others. “Has any Dark Fae ever been brought back into the Light?”
Cordelle shook his head slowly. “Not in any recorded history I’ve found. The transformation is considered permanent, once the magic binds to blood and bone, it consumes the Light. That’s how the Blood King maintains control. Through permanence.”
“But what if it’s not?” I asked quietly. “What if no one’s tried? What if Seraveth is more than we think? What if she remembers who she was?”
Zander straightened from the wall. “Then that makes her even more dangerous.”
“Or more important,” I said.
Because if someone like her could be brought back—
Then maybe the Stormborn prophecy wasn’t about choosing destruction.
Maybe it was about choosing redemption.
Even for the ones who’d already fallen.