Chapter Twenty-Six
Elysia
The tome before us is thick, its blackened cover faded with age and wrapped in a violet ribbon that crumbles slightly as Serenath unties it.
My heart aches as I think of Penelope’s ribbon.
I thought about twining it into my hair today, but an unease in my gut told me to keep it safely tucked away in my room where it can’t be lost.
The spine of the tome groans in protest as Serenath opens it, revealing delicate parchment edged in gold, its ink handwritten in looping strokes.
No one speaks as she turns the first page and suddenly the air feels even more stifling as I think about this being a direct glimpse into a dark past I know very little about.
She traces the first passage with her fingertip, then gestures toward the detailed illustration that blooms across the left side of the page.
The image is drawn in swirling black and gold lines.
There are two elves, one of the blue-skinned Dromin and one of the purple-skinned Nithrin, their hands clasped and their foreheads touching.
Glyphs wind around them, glowing faintly against the aged page.
She looks up at me and our eyes meet. “This is where it all began. Unified between both dreams and nightmares.”
“There weren’t always two separate courts?” I ask quietly, even though the answer is obvious in the reverence of the image.
“No.” Serenath speaks softly, like she’s sorrowful about what has been lost. “The Dromin and the Nithrin lived as one … complements to each other. Dream and nightmare. Light and dark. Our magic flourished when they moved in balance together.”
She turns the page and another illustration is revealed, this time a spiraling tree with two roots entwined beneath the surface, both dark and light. My eyes widen as I recognize the tree I saw yesterday. It’s the one the kings pressed their blood into for their vows.
“Soulmates between the two types of magic weren’t rare,” she continues. “They were expected. The joining of opposites didn’t dilute our magic. It strengthened it.”
I glance at Rhune, whose gaze is focused on the open book. His expression is unreadable, but there’s a tension in his jaw. Like this is a truth he’s known for a long time, yet it still hurts to hear.
Serenath’s fingers rest on a line of text, and she recites it in a murmur, “When shadow meets light in truth, eternity blooms.”
I let out a breath.
“As fewer soulmates appeared, something shifted in the flow of magic. Where once it came freely, it began to require intervention. The Goddess’s blessing became necessary to maintain longevity and to sustain power.”
“So the human queen choosing a king … that’s what replaces the balance?” I ask, my thoughts muddied as I try to make sense of how it all fits together.
“No,” Rhune says quietly. “It’s a placeholder. A compromise.”
His voice startles me. It’s the first time he’s spoken since the tome was opened, and his words settle heavy in the space between us.
“If the courts were whole again,” he continues, “they wouldn’t need the blessing. They wouldn’t need the Queen.”
I look at him fully, and he meets my gaze for a long, unblinking moment.
It’s not an accusation. It’s a truth … one that changes everything.
Serenath turns the page again, and the gentle grace of the earlier images vanishes.
This illustration is harsher, drawn in jagged lines.
Dark shapes ripple across the page, tangled in thorny glyphs.
Where the first pages glowed with harmony, this one bleeds with dissonance.
A city in flames. A figure shrouded in shadows, but I recognize the heads snapped at unnatural angles, and their eight glowing eyes, before she says the words.
“The Valgys,” Serenath says, her voice steadier now, almost detached as she recites the history. “An army of corrupted elves for the Dark God—the Goddess’s brother. He fed on chaos, where she feeds on peace.”
I stare at the image and murmur, “We’re told of the Valgys, where I’m from. They’re told as bedtime stories meant to scare children into being good, but we learned that they were once real and not seen since the end of the Blood War.”
“They were once like us,” she continues with a nod. “But their bodies twisted to accommodate the power they took in. Their magic fractured and their souls cracked.”
Rhune’s arms are crossed now and his expression is as rigid as the castle’s stone walls.
“The elves at the time of the war started fighting side by side to stop the Dark God’s rise, but in war, division began to fester, which started to tear the Dromin and Nithrin apart.”
She flips to the next page. “The humans played a part in this.”
My spine straightens at that. We were never told of these details.
“They were allies,” Serenath clarifies quickly as she sees my shock. “At least to the Nithrin, but to the Dromin, particularly those who were unmated and fighting on the front lines—humans were a means to an end.”
I feel Rhune shift beside me.
“They began to overfeed,” she continues. “To draw more and more dreams, hoping to bolster their magic for battle, not having the ever-flowing source like their soulmates did.”
A sick feeling settles in my gut. “What happened to the humans?”
“Some recovered,” Serenath answers with a grim set to her thin lips. “But others died from it, being kept in a constant state of dreaming.”
I close my eyes for a moment, trying not to imagine rows of sleeping bodies, never stirring.
“What about the Nithrin?” I ask.
“They refused,” she says simply. “They would not treat humans as an infinite resource. They considered them brothers-in-arms who aided in replenishing magic in a consenting manner.”
“And that’s what split the elves?” I ask in a hushed whisper.
She nods once. “That was the beginning of the fracture. Nithrin and Dromin fought side by side until the final day of the war, but afterward, the majority could no longer look each other in the eye. Mates were torn apart in the divide.”
Rhune’s jaw tightens at the same time my heart squeezes.
Serenath looks down at the book. “They signed a treaty that day. Divided our world into two courts and then split the humans’ territory evenly between them. Dromin to the east. Nithrin to the west.”
Serenath doesn’t turn the page this time; instead she grabs a slip of parchment tucked carefully between its binding and the back cover. It’s yellow and the corners are curled with age.
“This isn’t part of the formal archive and not many know of its existence,” she explains, laying the scroll on the table between us. “It was written by a scribe who witnessed firsthand the Goddess’s decree after the end of the war. One of the few accounts believed to be unaltered.”
My heart thuds at that and I begin to understand her notion that ideas and words kept here within the library are dangerous.
She smooths the parchment open, and I lean closer as she reads the scrawled ink aloud.
“If unity is no longer chosen, it will be forced. One queen. One bond. One blessing. So shall the cycle repeat until the realm remembers what it lost.”
The words settle over the room.
“That’s what all of this is for?” I ask slowly. “The selection. The blessing. The crown?”
Serenath nods. “It was never about the elevation of humans. The human queen’s purpose isn’t to rule. It’s to act as a bridge between what’s been broken.”
“So I’m not a symbol of peace.” My voice is quieter now. “I’m a punishment for the courts.”
“No,” Rhune interjects before Serenath can respond. “You’re a chance.”
I look at him and he holds my gaze as he continues. “The blessing isn’t a reward. It’s a leash. One designed to keep both courts tethered to a choice they were too proud to make.”
“To each other,” I say.
Rhune nods once.
“Without the Queen choosing,” Serenath adds, “neither side receives the magic they’ve come to depend on. The blessing sustains their lifespan. It’s conditional on the human queen’s choice because the Goddess hoped it would make them remember how to stand together, in order to not need it.”
“And if they don’t?” I ask.
“We remain fractured and weaker the longer each court goes without her blessing. Since the creation of the two courts and this nuanced relationship with a human queen, there has somehow been a natural balance, each queen alternating between the courts for her choice of king to bind herself to. Until recently. The last queen who passed broke the cycle. It was naturally supposed to be the Nithrin’s turn, but she chose Sorryn. ”
The silence that follows is deeper than any I’ve known.
This has to be why the High Priestess forbade the kings, with their vow, from talking about the past queens.
I look down at the scroll, at the ancient lines penned by a hand that likely turned to dust long ago.
I stare at it, but the words blur.
One queen. One bond. One blessing.
A cycle. A condition. A correction for a choice that was never mine.
I sink back into a chair at the end of the table, the cushion offering no comfort.
This entire time, I thought the crown was a symbol of elevation. Of ascension. I thought being chosen meant something about who I was … my strength and my worth. But now, I see it for what it truly is: I’m a patch to cover a tear the elves refuse to mend.
“I was never meant to rule,” I murmur, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
Rhune looks at me but says nothing.
Serenath closes the scroll and places a gentle hand over it, as if to tuck the words back into sleep. “You are meant to remind them,” she says softly. “To remind us all.”
My hands curl slightly in my lap. If I’m meant to be a reminder, then maybe I can be more than that too. Not just a symbol. Not just a patch. Maybe I can be the one who tears open the seams wide enough to force something new.
But I don’t say that aloud … not yet.
Serenath reaches for another book, this one smaller, bound in cracked white leather with silver-edged pages. Its cover bears the mark of the Sacrum mountain range: two jagged lines split down the center by a single thread of gold.
Rhune steps closer, his gaze narrowing as a map unfolds across the inner page. It shows the Vothia Empire not as it is now, but as a land I don’t recognize. A single, unbroken territory.
“These mountains,” Serenath begins, her finger tracing the line where they are now, “were not always here.”
I blink in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“They were raised,” she explains. “Not by time or weather, but by choice. By force.”
She flips to the next page, revealing an old etching.
“The final stand of the Blood War happened there on the ground,” she explains.
“The remnants of the Valgys were too many to destroy outright with Vayrith ripping through our magic. The lands were too saturated with the Dark God’s magic.
So the Dromin and Nithrin worked together to carve a prison from the ground itself. ”
She runs her palm across the page.
“It was one of the last acts of unity between our people, and one of the most powerful. They pulled the ground up around the valley, sealed the Valgys beneath it, and locked the soil with divine glyphs.”
“The Goddess helped,” Rhune adds, his voice low. “Or so the unofficial records say. She laced the seal with her power, so no magic, not even our own, could stir what slept below.”
A chill whispers over my skin.
“What if something does stir?” I ask, the words leaving me before I can stop them.
Serenath pauses, but Rhune doesn’t.
“Then we’re not dealing with just Vayrith,” he says.
My breath catches.
“The mountains were meant to divide the empire,” Serenath says, “but its true purpose was always to bury the past. To keep what was made in darkness from rising again.”
Serenath closes the tome with a soft snap, her fingers lingering over the cover.
When she speaks again, her voice has changed, this time quiet and laced with sorrow. “There’s one more story you need to hear, with your connection to Vayrith.”
She doesn’t reach for a book this time. Just another slip of parchment, so thin it looks like it could tear from breathing on it. She places it on the table like it’s something sacred.
“This isn’t written in the official histories either, but those who were there, my own teachers who survived the Blood War, passed it down.”
She unfolds the page. No drawings, no glyphs. Just words.
“There was a woman,” she begins, “once revered among our people. A Nithrin with exceptional magical talent. She was gifted in illusion.”
My stomach twists.
“She pledged herself to the Dark God near the war’s end,” Serenath continues. “No one knows why. Some say she believed she could control his power. Others say he twisted her from within.”
She looks up at me. “She is the one who summoned Vayrith.”
The words sit like lead sinking in my chest.
“The Dark God blessed her with blood magic for her commitment to him. She used this to bring her illusions to life. Bound the creature to her soul. As we said earlier, it answered only to her, and through her, it destroyed thousands.”
She pauses.
“This elf … before the war, she had a Dromin mate.”
I inhale sharply.
How could she bring destruction to her people, her family and friends, but also her soulmate?
“They were bonded before her defection. He refused to follow her. When no one else could stop her, when all other attempts to kill her failed, he was the only one who could get close.”
Serenath’s gaze drops to the final line on the parchment, and when she speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper.
“He used her weakness for him to end the war. He killed her and with her death, Vayrith disappeared.”
A silence settles over the alcove.
My thoughts drift, not to the Nithrin woman, or the war, but to the eyes in the flame. To the way they stirred at my presence.
“Serenath?” I ask quietly, waiting for her hum of acknowledgment before continuing. “If the flame is to show what magical affinity I could have once I’m blessed, does that mean I have blood magic or illusion magic?”
She lets out a heavy breath before splaying her hands on the table. “That is a question I do not have the answer to. I could guess, but it would be mere conjecture.”
My thoughts twist toward a different path as my gut churns. “Then tell me this … if I were to die and not be blessed by the Goddess, would that prevent Vayrith from rising?”