But everything’s changed now.I trust her, body and soul. Not that she wouldn’t consider righting the balance between nature and civilization—but that she wouldn’t decide alone.
She’d tell me.
We’d face it together.
Together, always.
I take a deep breath before I flip the next page.
The next illustration is the one I glimpsed when Suri handed me the book. It was that moment when it all clicked like a fucking lock.
I flip to the next page and stagger back like I’ve seen a ghost, elbow knocking something over behind me.
No.No fucking way. It can’t be.
“That backstabbing motherfucker,” I growl, hands tightening on the edges of the altar until the wood nearly splinters. I stagger back, slamming my fist into the stone wall. “Fuck!”
My lungs feel too small, too empty. I pace, rubbing my sternum, trying to fight for air. My mind can’t snag on a single thought.
Finally, I get my shit together.
I lean over the altar, hands still clenched like I’m trying to bend the wood in two, and force myself to keep flipping through the pages.
At first, I thought these illustrations were just records. Like the pictograms in Drahallen Hall. Thought they were showing me what already happened.
But no.
These aren’t history.
They’re ablueprint for the future.
A gods-damned prophecy laid out in ink and blood—how the fae intend to dominate the world, piece by piece, until there's nothing left to worship but them.
“Sabine,” I whisper, and slam the book shut.
I sprint up the stairs to the royal bedroom in a daze, shoving past soldiers, nearly careening into the wall. I must look drunk—hell, I feel it—my head spinning so hard I can barely see straight.
I shove the door open hard enough to rattle it in its hinges?—
—to find Sabine is already on her feet.
Her human glamour’s half-fallen, silver light flaring at her palms like a weapon. Her eyes are wide, wild, searching the room until they land on me.
She exhales, hard. “Basten.”
I’m breathless. “You’re awake?”
“I had a dream,” she says quickly, stepping toward me, voice tight with urgency. “No—not a dream. A memory, like before. I was coming to find you.”
Our eyes meet, both of us shaken.
And I realize how in sync we really are now.
I drop the book at the foot of the bed beside her, where it falls like a brick.
There’s a beat where she only stares at it, as if she knows what this means.
“The Last Return of the Fae?” she finally states, her voice distant.
