Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Strolling the halls in search of Ace, I can’t help noticing how light I feel.
So unlike the way I once followed a breeze through the forest—unhurried, attentive—I now glide through unfamiliar corridors, carried by a joy that feels larger than solitude ever allowed.
A smile still curves my mouth; my cheeks ache faintly from it. I don’t think I have ever smiled so much.
Perhaps this joy has always lived somewhere inside me. But among Vale and Ace, it is set ablaze. The solemn hush of the portrait gallery lingers as I begin to gather myself.
I hum the ballad Ace sang in part as I draw smooth, steady strokes through my tousled hair.
The tune follows me all evening—soft as a memory, heavy as a vow.
I find Ace precisely where I expect him: just beyond the stables, the fading sun pooling gold across his shoulders as he strums his lute. The same melody I heard in the portrait hall drifts through the air, its notes as familiar as his laughter in the library.
“Play it for me?” I ask, not wishing to break the quiet. The flush on my cheeks from the stolen moment with Vale lingers, warmth meeting the chill of dusk.
Ace looks up, one brow arched. “’Tis a tale of fate and woe, dear friend. Are you sure you wish to bear it all?”
“Yes,” I say, certain. Knowing more—of this place, of him—is the closest I can come to understanding the man who carries its crown and the way my heart keeps turning toward him.
He sighs, but his smile softens. “Very well then.”
He plays.
The Ballad of Steel and Flame
Stenric wed a snowdrop fair,
Eirlys right with frost-bound hair.
Stone and ice their union made,
’til mountain’s price was duly paid.
Oh Caerhollan, crown of stone,
Shadowed peaks yet not alone.
The High Hold keeps, through steel and flame,
The power bound, the hope reclaimed.
Korrin bold, with sons so keen,
Alaric brave, Erymir green.
War took both, their father too—
Eldest line was torn clean through.
Liora’s line, a sprightly brood,
Free of burden, light of mood.
Daughters fair and son so bold,
Their laughter worth more than gold.
Oh Caerhollan, crown of stone,
Shadowed peaks yet not alone.
The High Hold keeps, through steel and flame,
The power bound, the hope reclaimed.
Thalen sought the roads of peace,
Sylara’s light his soul’s release.
Their Vale was born of shadow’s storm,
Yet dawn through him, will still be sworn.
Aurienne shines with copper crown,
Her health too frail for mountain town.
She weds a scribe where sea winds play,
And keeps the books in sacred stay.
Oh Caerhollan, crown of stone,
Shadowed peaks yet not alone.
The High Hold keeps, through steel and flame,
The power bound, the hope reclaimed.
A king of stone, with shadowed crown,
He keeps the fragile peace passed down.
His greatest prize, a love so true—
His heart shall find its equal too.
Oh Caerhollan, crown of stone,
Shadowed peaks yet not alone.
The High Hold keeps, through steel and flame,
The power bound, the hope reclaimed.
The final chord lingers, trembling through the air before the wind carries it away.
Neither of us speaks for a long moment.
The song stays with me, etched in memory as surely as legacy is carved into every stone of this Hold.
Through steel and flame, through love and ruin—Caerhollan remembers.
And now, so do I.
That night, the melody does not leave me.
I slip into my chamber just as corridors quiet, still half-humming the refrain beneath my breath. The hearth casts a muted glow stretching across the floorboards. My shift brushes against my legs as I move—soft and weightless, as though I walk through someone else’s dream.
The bed feels too large without Vale beside me. He has been called to a late council, one of the countless duties that claim him after dusk. Yet even in his absence, his presence lingers—the faint scent the sheets carry, the ghost of his laughter from earlier echoing like a promise unkept.
I sit at the edge of the mattress, fingers tracing circles absentmindedly along the coverlet as the verses replay in my mind. Not the battles. Not the kings. Only the final stanza.
A king of stone, with shadowed crown,
He keeps the fragile peace passed down.
His greatest prize, a love so true—
His heart shall find its equal too.
Equal.
The word pulses through me like a heartbeat.
Not beloved. Not chosen. Equal.
Is that what Vale has been waiting for all these years?
Or what Caerhollan itself demands of him?
I lie back against the cool linen, eyes on the ceiling beams that catch the faintest shimmer of moonlight. The words refuse to fade, looping between breath and thought until I can no longer tell whether the ache in my chest is longing or dread.
When sleep finally claims me, it is not the peaceful kind.
Fire bleeds through the darkness—ribbons of light coiling around a shadowed crown. The mountain trembles beneath unseen weight, its heart beating in time with my own. I see faces I do not know and yet somehow love and hear voices whispering the same refrain through the smoke:
Through steel and flame…
Then—Vale’s face, pale and drawn, eyes reflecting the blaze.
I reach for him, but the world cracks open between us.
I gasp awake, drenched in sweat, my pulse thundering like hooves on stone. The fire in the hearth has reignited—or perhaps I only dream it so.
“Easy,” comes his voice, low and steady.
Vale sits beside me, half in shadow, concern softening the hard lines of his face. His hand brushes damp hair from my forehead.
“You’re safe,” he murmurs. “It was only a dream.”
But I’m not certain of that. The air still shimmers faintly, the scent of ash lingering like memory.
I turn toward him, breath shuddering. “It didn’t feel like one.”
His thumb traces my temple, the same gesture that steadied me once before. “Then whatever it is,” he says quietly, “it will not reach you here.”
I want to believe him. But as I sink back into his arms, the words of the ballad still echo—soft, insistent, eternal.
His heart shall find its equal too.
And for the first time, I wonder if prophecy has already begun to keep its promise.
By the time I join Ace in the library, the nightmare has retreated—but not far. It hovers at the edge of thought, like smoke that refuses to clear, as if the dream itself waits for me to name it.
“That song—where does it come from?” My elbows rest on the table, a book open before me. The words blur on the page, haunted by the melody that refuses to leave me.
“Oh, so you like it?” His grin breaks wide, pure mischief and pride. “It’s one of my own.”
“It captures your history in a haunting way,” I say, keeping my tone steady. “But the ending…”
“Well, that comes straight from the pages of prophecy, my dear. Here—come with me.”
He hops from his perch and beckons for me to follow. His footsteps echo softly through the corridor, drawing me toward a place I somehow already know.
“The Sanctum,” he says grandly, “where all of Caerhollan’s greatest secrets lie.”
We stop before the barred gate at the stair’s end. Iron and chain, lock and spell, seal the way. My chest tightens. Despite the warmth that defies reason, an unsettling chill courses through my veins. The air feels older—like breath drawn from stone.
“What exactly is down there?” I ask, though part of me already fears the answer.
“Mostly dust and parchment,” he says lightly. “Though one book down there claims to hold every word ever written about the royal line. Vale and I used to sneak down as boys. We thought if we read the prophecies first, we might outwit fate itself.”
“Did you?”
“Not once.” His grin falters into something gentler. “Some lines are clear—revealed when a birth or death demands it. Others are as tangled as mountain mist. Even translated a dozen times, they read like riddles whispered by ghosts.”
He rubs the back of his neck, brow furrowed. “If it speaks of the crown, it’s in there somewhere. But only the gods—or the brave—would try to read it.”
I stare into the dark below, the air humming faintly with unseen power. Something ancient calls from beneath the stone. I feel it in my bones—the ache of it, the pull.
Ace claps his hands together, shaking off the quiet. “Let’s not dwell, Mira. Come back to brighter things—like how much you adore my music.”
He steers me back toward the library. I let him fill the air with stories, laughter, and mischief. But even as I smile, I can’t shake the voice from the dark, the one that seems to whisper my name between heartbeats, as if waiting for me to stop pretending I haven’t heard it.
The days fall into rhythm. Mornings spent among the shelves with Ace—his chatter a kind of lifeline, his laughter keeping the shadows at bay.
Afternoons bring quiet hours in Vale’s company, our talks turning softer, our silences more certain.
Soria’s presence weaves through it all, steady and grounding, her quiet grace shaping each day into something almost ordinary.
Almost.
Because the nights belong to something else.
Even when I sleep in Vale’s arms, his warmth steady against my back, dreams find me. They come like storms—heat and shadow and half-remembered voices. I wake with my heart racing and his hand at my cheek, whispering comforts I can barely hear.
By day I learn to smile again.
By night, the dark learns my name.
I wake gasping, the remnants of another dream clawing at my throat.
The world is half-light and heartbeat—the fire in the hearth long dead, the air chilled to its bones.
Vale’s arms are already around me, holding me upright before I can flee the echo of it.
A storm rages, rain pelting the windowpane to match the tempest within me.
“Mira,” his voice is rough with sleep, but his hands are steady as they frame my face. “It’s the third time this week.”
“I’m fine,” I try to say, though the tremor in my breath betrays me.