“We separate them,” Kaen said. “We use the wards you taught me. Cloak the tether. Let her feel abandoned again. That’s when the doubt will begin. When the chaos begins.”
The other robed figure, silent until now, finally spoke. “And if it doesn’t work? If she resists?”
Kaen turned, the candlelight catching the edge of something in his eyes that had not been there once, something old and dangerous.
“Then we burn it all. And from the ashes, we rebuild.”
He turned back to the basin and sliced his palm with a dagger carved from Riftstone. His blood dripped into the pool, and the image darkened. The stone walls began to quake.
“It’s time,” Kaen said. “Ready the Hollow. Ready the gate. Tell the others. We move by nightfall.”
The chamber pulsed once, deep and low. Far above, unaware of what had been set in motion, the Academy readied for another patrol. Cadets laughed. Dragons stirred. And the shadows beneath them waited.
Far beyond the Vale of Sigryn, beneath the charred remains of a forgotten fortress, Kaen stood within a war chamber cloaked in shadow. The walls pulsed faintly with red sigils, as if blood-sealed. Around him gathered cloaked figures, their features obscured, their voices lowered to whispers even in secrecy.
"She has returned," one of the hooded figures hissed. "The Aether stirs."
Kaen’s jaw tightened. "Then we strike before the power anchors fully. We allowed her to return; it was necessary to plant doubt. But now we shift to certainty."
A second voice rasped, "The Queen’s protections grow stronger. Her sight reaches beyond even what she reveals to the King."
Kaen turned, hands resting on the edge of a blackened table carved with shifting runes. "Then we take the Queen. Quietly. Swiftly."
A murmur spread among the circle.
"She is too well-guarded."
Kaen smiled coldly. "Not for long. I have a man within herservice. He’ll see to her isolation. We do not need a battlefield; we need a whisper in the right corridor, a false scroll, a redirected patrol. She’ll be vulnerable within her own tower."
The tallest cloaked figure stepped forward. "And when she is in our hands?"
"We strip her mind," Kaen said softly. "She holds the last pieces of the prophecy that were never written, never spoken aloud. She’s seen what comes next. I want it. And then, she’ll be the message. A fallen Queen is more powerful than a vanished one." A moment passed in silence before Kaen spoke again.
"Move the plan forward. The dark forces gather at the mountain passes. The moment Thaelyn takes to the sky alone again, we strike with full force."
He looked toward the brazier at the center of the room, where violet flame danced without smoke.
"Let the King believe the war is still months away. Let Thorne guard his little Aether flame. By the time they realize what we’ve done, the Veil will already be breaking."
The cloaked figures bowed low and dispersed into shadow. Kaen stood alone, the fire’s eerie light gleaming in his eyes. And though no one saw it, a tremor passed through his hand. Not of fear. But of hunger.
Chapter
Fifty-Six
The chamber pulsed with ancient rhythm. The air itself felt alive, buzzing with threads of power unseen, stirring Thaelyn’s senses until even her breath trembled in her lungs. The Watcher stood before her, one hand raised, etched with a sigil older than memory itself, a symbol forged before kingdoms rose, before the Veil was torn.
Her hand mirrored his, almost unwillingly, drawn by something primal and infinite. Light flared in the air between their palms, not golden or violet, not even aether-blue, but something more profound, a color beyond comprehension, a shimmer that cracked through time.
The sigil branded itself into her palm. It didn’t burn, itsang, a hum so fierce it traveled up her arm, into her blood, threading through every nerve. Her bones glowed beneath her skin as the sigil awakened.
Thaelyn staggered back, clutching her hand to her chest, gasping. Her vision swam with layered realities. One moment, she stood in the Watcher’s sanctum, the next she saw the ancient halls of Aeromir bathed in white fire, and a storm tearing across a field where dragon wings beat in wild rhythm.
“I can hear the storms,” she whispered, breathless.
“Not just hear,”Nyxariel whispered into her mind. “You command them now. They will not rage without your will.”
The Watcher stepped forward, his eyes not on her, but on thesigil glowing against her skin. “You are no longer merely bound to Aether. You are the bearer of its conscience. The balance of storm and flame, the weight of what was lost. The sigil has not awakened since Elirien wore it into the Sundering.”
