Hannah Mitchell stands on the eastern ridge above her village, blade in hand, running through combat forms with the desperate intensity of someone who knows they’re about to die. The setting sun catches the steel as she moves—fluid, precise, far more skilled than a self-taught fighter from a dyingvillage has any right to be. Her footwork is unconventional but effective, compensating for her smaller size with speed and unpredictability. Her blade work shows creativity born of necessity, techniques developed through trial and error against enemies that should have killed her.
She’s magnificent.
I’ve been watching Ironhold for longer than Hannah Mitchell has been alive. Watching the village, the bloodlines, waiting for the prophecy to reveal which thread I should pull. But I’ve been watchingher—specifically her, obsessively her—ever since my scouts reported a human woman who actually fought back against chaos-beasts instead of running. At first, I was merely confirming what I already suspected. Humans don’t typically produce warriors worth noticing. The species has grown soft since the Sundering, dependent on Fae protection, resentful of the strength they cannot match. Most of them scurry through their brief lives like mice, grateful for whatever scraps of safety we deign to provide.
But Hannah Mitchell is different.
I lean back in my chair, the scrying crystal balanced on my palm, and study her the way I’ve studied opponents for seven centuries. She’s fast. Clever. Absolutely fearless in ways that make something long-dormant stir in my chest—something I barely recognize anymore, it’s been so long since I felt it.
Interest. Genuine interest, not the pale imitation I’ve been performing for centuries.
And underneath the skill, underneath the courage, I can see what no one else seems to notice: she’s exhausted. It’s there in the slight tremor of her arms as she holds a guard position, in the way her shoulders carry tension that never quite releases, in thehollow determination of her expression. The look of someone who’s been carrying too much for too long and has forgotten what it feels like to set the weight down.
Eight years, according to my intelligence. Eight years of being Ironhold’s only real protection. Eight years of standing alone against every threat that emerged from the chaos-torn world around them, while the people she protected leaned on her without ever asking if she was strong enough to bear it.
I understand that weight better than she could possibly imagine.
Seven hundred and thirty-four years I’ve held this position. Guardian of Stone Court. Defender of the mountain territories. The undefeated champion who stands between the chaos and everything my people have built.
It wasn’t supposed to be forever.
I remember the early centuries—the ones that still felt liketimerather than an endless gray river flowing past without touching me. I remember having rivals, companions, lovers who challenged me in ways that mattered. I remember what it felt like to be uncertain of an outcome, to face an opponent and genuinely wonder if I would survive.
I remember feelingalive.
The last worthy opponent I faced died four hundred years ago—a Frost Court general who actually made me bleed before I crushed his throat. I still think about that fight sometimes. The shock of pain, the surge of something primal that demanded I prove myself, the satisfaction of victory that was actuallyearnedrather than inevitable.
Four hundred years. And nothing since. Nothing but an endless parade of challengers who surrender before the first blow lands, omegas who spread their legs for my title rather than my person, courtiers who tell me what they think I want to hear because disagreeing with the Guardian is unthinkable.
I am the most powerful warrior in Stone Court’s history, surrounded by thousands who serve me, and I cannot remember the last time someone looked at me without calculation or fear.
The loneliness should bother me more than it does. I’ve noticed that—the way I’ve grown numb to the absence of genuine connection, the way centuries of isolation have calcified into something that feels almost like contentment. I go through the motions of living because that’s what Guardians do. I take omegas to my bed because the rut demands it and the court expects heirs. I train warriors and attend councils and make decisions that shape the lives of thousands, and none of it touches me anymore.
I stopped expecting it to touch me a long time ago.
But watching Hannah Mitchell fight for her life on that ridge, watching her refuse to surrender to exhaustion or fear or the simple mathematics of her situation—something cracks in the stone I’ve built around myself. Something stirs that I thought had died centuries ago.
I want her. Not because the prophecy requires a fourth bond, though it does. Not because Lord Oberon has made clear that Stone Court’s participation is essential to the grand design, though he has. I want her because she’s the first thing in four hundred years that’s made me feel something other than the slow, grinding weight of immortality.
The prophecy and my desire have aligned. That’s either fortune or fate, and I’ve lived long enough to stop believing in the difference.
Lord Oberon came to me six months ago. I was standing before the mirror in my private chambers when the glass began to ripple like disturbed water, and then he was there—not reflected, butpresentin a way that defied the boundary between image and reality. His silver eyes see through everything—flesh and stone and the carefully constructed walls I’ve built around whatever’s left of my soul. He died before the Sundering, before the courts themselves took shape, but death has never stopped Oberon from making his will known. When he speaks, even Guardians listen.
“The fourth bond must be Stone Court’s,” he said, his voice echoing strangely, as if coming from very far away and intimately close at once. “Thorn has contributed diplomacy—Prince Kaelen’s omega softens resistance, makes humanity believe the bonds are romance rather than conquest. Frost has contributed discipline—Lord Aratus’s omega demonstrates that submission brings peace, that fighting only prolongs suffering. Vine has contributed abundance—King Thorian’s omega proves that surrender is rewarded with pleasure beyond human imagination.”
“And Stone Court?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Strength.” Oberon’s silver gaze pinned me in place, the mirror’s surface shimmering around his spectral form. “The fourth bond must demonstrate that even the strongest humans cannot resist. That even warriors fall. That courage and skill anddetermination mean nothing against Fae power.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “Find me a warrior, Guardian. Find me a woman who fights, and break her so thoroughly that no human who hears her story will ever think of resistance again.”
I should have felt something at those words. Revulsion, perhaps, or at least hesitation. But seven centuries of being Stone Court’s weapon have carved away whatever softness might have objected. Oberon speaks for the prophecy, and the prophecy is absolute—even in death, his vision guides us. Eight bonds between Fae lords and human women of specific bloodlines, eight children who will reshape the balance between worlds. Three bonds already sealed, five remaining.
The grand design requires my participation. What I want is irrelevant.
Or so I thought, until I saw Hannah Mitchell.
Oberon wanted a warrior to break. He wanted a symbol—proof that human strength means nothing against Fae dominion. He wanted me to find someone fierce and crush her into submission, to make an example that would echo through human settlements for generations.
Instead, I found someone who makes me want things I’d forgotten I could want. A woman who looks at impossible odds and chooses to fight anyway. A woman whose courage isn’t performance or desperation but something bone-deep and genuine, forged in eight years of standing alone against the dark.
