“And you did as she asked?” Zander rasped, something hollow blooming in his voice.
Alahathrial nodded.
“She begged me for a daughter. And I gave her one. A gift born of love.”
He glanced at me then, and every hair on my arms rose.
“I gifted your bloodline with a sister. One born not from duty, or manipulation, but from desire. One who will be powerful in her own right when she is grown.”
Zander staggered a half-step. “Elara.”
Alahathrial nodded again, softer now.
“You are the dark,” he said, his voice strange, almost like a benediction. “The key that is needed now. She is the light. She will be the balance.”
My heart thundered.
“The balance of what?” I asked.
“The war. Both of you have dark gifts. There is a reason you are… attracted to one another. You are two halves of one whole.”
“What does that mean?”
Alahathrial turned back to Zander, his expression solemn now, stripped of all the quiet arrogance he’d worn like a second skin.
“You were born to open a door,” he said, voice low, like each word was being laid with careful weight. “Not to a kingdom. Not to a throne. But to the Fae Sanctuary itself.”
Zander didn’t speak. He just stared, his entire body tense, coiled like Hein right before a dive.
“But,” Alahathrial continued, and his gaze shifted.
To me.
My breath caught in my throat.
“It’s not just you they need,” he said. “The door won’t open with one bloodline alone. It needs that of another. One far darker than yours.”
He took a step forward, his voice dipping lower, heavier.
“A second bloodline is required. One thought lost. One feared more than any other.”
His eyes locked onto mine then, lavender and ancient, and I felt the power ripple through the air like lightning crawling over skin.
“You,” he said, his voice reverent and grim, “are the one the prophecy fears.”
My mouth went dry. “Why?” I whispered.
“You are the destroyer.”
The room felt like it had dropped out from under me.
Zander inhaled deeply beside me.
But I couldn’t look at him.
I couldn’t look at anything except Alahathrial, whose words still echoed in my chest like a curse I hadn’t asked for.
Destroyer.
