CHAPTER 13
Faelith tried to watch him with a steady, calm gaze. The wound had bled through the cloth, darkening it in uneven patches. Though none of them were severe, Faelith still felt guilty for injuring him. The least she could do was provide him with first aid.
Cian shook his head. “I headed to the archives to see if I could uncover the truth. After I snuck in, I noticed the candle casting a silhouette against the wall. I thought someone snuck into the Archives to destroy the evidence. I followed the light; that is when I ran into you... or rather, you ran into me.”
His voice was low, controlled, but she heard the humor beneath the last part.
He had not expected her; that was true enough, but that didn’t explain how he had heard about Vaelcourt in the first place.
Faelith hesitated, considering the question that lingered unspoken between them.
She wondered how much Cian truly knew, and whether someone else had pointed him toward Vaelcourt's secrets before this night.
Cian reached over and took her hand, the one still holding the bandage against his shoulder. His touch was warm, steady, and gentle. He slowly guided her hand away, as if he feared she might pull back too quickly, and he replaced it with his own to hold down the fabric.
“I can bandage it myself,” he said.
Faelith let him take the cloth without complaint. He leaned forward on the chair, shoulders squared, jaw set, refusing to wince as he pressed the bandage and then lifted to see if the bleeding was still active.
She watched him for a long moment as he cleaned the area. The quiet between them grew heavy, heavier than the possible truth the letters she had found could hold for Faelith.
She took a leap of faith.
“You were right, the archives did hold a clue,” she said. “But I haven’t fully been able to piece them together yet.”
Cian looked up at her, waiting.
Faelith reached beneath her cloak and withdrew the stack of letters she had taken from the shelf. The parchments showed their age, edges softened by time and use. She set them on the table beside them and sat down across from him.
“These could be the reason why she died,” Faelith said. “Someone deliberately placed these in the archive office for me to find.”
Cian’s eyes flicked to hers, then back to the letters. He reached out, grabbed the top letter, and began to silently read the first lines. The fragmented script, the sigils Vaelcourt had drawn, the warning woven through the text.
A bearer of the bloodline… The Sword will strike... the world shall suffer beneath the First Hunger... All fates rest in the Fire’s choice.
Cian read the fragmented prophecy again, slower this time. The candlelight flickered across his face, catching the faint tension in his jaw. For an instant she thought she saw something dark pass through his eyes, a shadow of recognition or fear, before his composure settled again.
He set the letter down.
Faelith reached for the next one, sliding it across the table so they could both see.
The parchment was brittle at the edges; the ink faded in places where Vaelcourt’s hand had pressed too hard.
Cian leaned closer, careful not to strain his shoulder, and Faelith found herself watching the way his eyes moved over the words, sharp and deliberate.
“These are not simple correspondences,” Faelith said. “They were written in code. Luckily for me, it's the same code my Mother used when I was a child and we would hide secret messages with each other.”
Cian nodded once. “They were afraid someone would find out.”
Faelith unfolded another sheet, the one that held a sketch of the circular amulet, etched with ancient elven script. Vaelcourt had drawn it with precision, each line exact, each symbol placed with intention.
Cian studied the drawing.
“This amulet must be what they are after,” Faelith began, tracing one of the sigils with her fingertip. “According to my mother, it’s a key that unlocks something very dangerous. She wrote that the prophecy could not be completed without it.”
Cian’s brow tightened. “Why could they not just destroy it?”
Faelith pondered for a second. “If this amulet is connected to the prophecy, it’s as old as this First Hunger. And the Old God. It cannot be destroyed by just any hand. Though my knowledge of forgotten elven gods is limited, It's only a guess.”
She reached for another letter, this one written in Rena’s familiar script. The ink was steadier, the lines more controlled, but the urgency was still there beneath each stroke.
Cian picked up a third letter, scanning the lines. “Rena wrote this one. She warns Vaelcourt that it's no longer safe to keep the amulet in Talcana. She says someone was watching her.”
“My mother knew. She knew what was happening inside the capital; why didn’t she tell me?”
“Perhaps she tried to protect you, and herself,” Cian said.
Faelith nodded, though a lump was starting to form at the back of her throat. She reached for another page, this one filled with hurried script, the ink smudged as if written in fear. Vaelcourt’s handwriting was uneven, the lines slanted.
“She wrote this the night before she died,” Faelith said quietly. “It was never sent.”
Cian read the words, his brow furrowing as Faelith read it off.
“She says the amulet was supposed to be smuggled out, but something went wrong? That she could not risk bringing it back to Rena.”
“The amulet must have been hidden by her.” Cian looked up; his grey storm-clouded eyes met hers.
Faelith swallowed. “Then her manor is the next place to look.”
“Then that is where we go.” He agreed.
Faelith felt the anticipation settle in her gut like a stone.
Vaelcourt Manor lay in the capital’s inner ring, abandoned since her death, watched by no one, protected by nothing.
It was a slim shot that the amulet was still there; but they might get lucky and find something that could point them in the right direction.
She gathered the letters into a neat stack, her fingers steady despite the weight of what they had uncovered.
The prophecy’s warning echoed in her mind, each line sharper now, a tug of a distant memory as each word more dangerous, crackling with the threat of forbidden magic and the shadow of a future unraveled.
She could almost feel the storm it promised—one that could topple their very world, bringing powers best left sleeping to the surface, and demanding a terrible price from any who sought to shape its meaning.
The one thing she was grateful for was that it seemed like she wouldn’t have to bear it alone.
???
They reached Vaelcourt Manor an hour before dawn, when the sky was still dark, but the horizon had begun to pale.
Spring had only just begun to touch the city.
The air carried that fragile mix of chill and promise, the scent of thawing earth drifting through the streets.
Buds clung to branches like hesitant thoughts.
Birds stirred in the hedgerows, offering the first thin notes of morning.
It should have felt hopeful. But hope had become a foreign thing to Cian in these past days.
He remembered first arriving here as a child in spring, when the world seemed limitless, and the manor glowed with laughter and music.
Now, all he felt was a hollow ache, the familiar landscape rendered strange by loss.
The fragile beginning of morning only deepened the sense that something irretrievable had gone missing within him.
But as Cian approached the Vaelcourt estate, the early-spring light only made the damage sharp in contrast.
The manor stood at the crest of the inner ring, its once-grand silhouette broken by fire.
Charred beams jutted from the roofline. Windows were blackened, their glass melted or cracked.
The gardens near the house wilted and scorched, patches of ash still clinging to the soil.
A black ribbon hung from the gate, rain-streaked and faded, fluttering weakly in the breeze.
No one had returned since the funeral.
Cian pushed the gate open. The hinges groaned, startling a pair of sparrows from the hedgerow. They burst into the air, wings beating hard as they fled.
He stepped inside.
Faelith walked beside him, silent, her gaze fixed on the ruined fa?ade.
Cian felt the shift in the air the moment they crossed the threshold.
A faint metallic tang lingered beneath the smoke, like the aftermath of lightning striking too close for comfort.
Magic. Old magic. The kind that left a prickle along the skin and a heaviness in the lungs.
He felt it settle along his spine.
The front door hung crooked on its hinges, half-burned, half-splintered.
Cian pushed it out of the way. The interior was cold, still carrying the faint scent of extinguished candles beneath the smoke.
Ash coated the floor in thin layers. The walls bore scorch marks—thin, branching lines like the trails left by a fire that had burned too fast to consume anything.
These marks had not been made with just any fire.
They were created with magic the night she died.
Cian’s jaw worked. He knew of only one faction that could control fire like this.
An Arcane Knight.
The city guard had missed this fact. Or ignored it.
He moved down the hallway, boots echoing softly. Faelith followed, her steps light, her eyes scanning every corner. The floorboards near the study door were darkened, as though heat had radiated outward in a sudden burst.
He reached the study.
The unbroken wax seal from the investigation still clung to the doorframe. No one had broken it. Or no one wanted to step foot in this room again.
Cian entered first.
The early-spring light filtered through the tall windows, pale and thin. It revealed everything winter had hidden: the dust motes, the absence, the faint scuff marks where investigators had moved about.
And the burn marks.