All the while, the sovereign stands at the heart of it, drawing power from a forbidden source.
My mother once warned me of this before she was taken.
“It doesn't matter what the magic is for. All that matters is who controls it.”
I want to scream, but the wind steals my voice. I want to ask Selen if she knew—if this was the lesson I was meant to learn, that the rules only ever apply to those without the strength to break them. I want to ask her if it’s worth fighting for anything at all, if every hope of justice is just a mirage projected by the powerful toamuse themselves. But I already know the answer. That’s why she showed us.
A memory comes to me, unbidden and violent: a street preacher in the Lower Wards, ranting about the fae of old and the gifts that walked with them, before the time of the emperor. How the noble blood was always hungry, and the only thing it respected was power. I’d frowned at her then, but now her madness seems like the only sane response.
Below us, the garden ceremony dissolves. The nobles file out, their heads bowed; servants move in to clean the altar, as though the unholy act requires immediate cleansing. The emperor doesn’t even look up. He simply turns and strides away, his retinue flocking in his wake. If he noticed us, he gave no sign.
The chill in my bones won’t leave. I don’t know what the ritual’s purpose was, but I have seen something forbidden, something no one is supposed to see.
And it changes everything.
Not just my understanding of the empire, but my place in it. If the emperor can flout his own laws, then maybe the rest of us can, too. Maybe that is the only law that matters: what you can get away with.
I try to picture what would happen if any other fae had dared such a crime in public. The bonfires would be lit, the headsman’s block polished and ready. The Ironhold itself would quake with the force of the example made.
But for him, it is a sacrament, a blessing. The old blood, hungry as ever.
A shudder goes through me, and I realize I am not alone in it. Byron sits beside me with his gaze locked outward, eyes shadowed and fierce in the light. For the first time he looks less untouchable, more raw. He doesn’t speak, but I sense a kind of kinship in the stunned silence he shares with me.
Above us, the sun slips behind a ragged cloudbank, and the world goes suddenly colder. The drake's ascent feels more like an escape than a return.
Chapter 26
Orphara's wings cut through darkening skies as she carries us back toward the Ironhold, the mountain fortress growing to its full, imposing presence. No one even tries to speak.
We land in the same clearing where our journey began, the void drake gracefully settling onto the rocky ground. I'm lowered to the earth, my legs unsteady as I readjust to solid ground.
“Quickly now,” Selen murmurs, “before the night patrols begin.”
Using her scale-rope, we file through the iron gate and back into the dim, labyrinthine tunnels beneath the Ironhold. The darkness feels different now. Not just the absence of light, but the presence of something else. Secrets. Lies. The weight of everything we've just witnessed.
Ellis stumbles beside me, his scholarly composure shattered. “Did you see—” he begins in a whisper.
“Not now,” Selen cuts him off.
We wind our way back through the ancient passages, retracing our steps through the mountain's heart. The rope guides us, invisible hands clutching an invisible lifeline. I'm grateful for it; my mind is too splintered to focus on navigation.
Once we reach Selen’s office, she secures the door and exhales slowly.
“Remove the suits,” she instructs, “and place them on my desk.”
My body slides back into visibility as I pull the suit off. The sensation is strange, like stepping back into my own skin after inhabiting a ghost. One by one, we reappear in the room, shedding the void drake scales.
Selen collects each garment with meticulous care, folding them and placing them inside a black sack beneath her desk.
“Now return to your quarters,” she says. “We will meet here again tomorrow morning, at nine.” Nothing more. No further word of explanation.
Everyone appears too drained to attempt to probe her further. I exchange a final glance with Byron, who nods briefly before turning away through the doorway into Selen’s quarters. Ellis follows him after casting me a final anxious look.
The rest of us file out of Selen’s office, where we split off in different directions. Lira catches my arm before she turns toward the female barracks.
“We need to talk,” she whispers. “All of us. Soon.”
I nod, squeezing her hand briefly. “I know.”
