“I suspected,” he said. “When Nyxariel chose you, I was certain.”
Thaelyn swallowed. “Why tell me now?”
“Because the Veil is thinning. Because dark things are on the verge of war, and they will come for you. You must know who you are if you hope to survive what is coming. But for now, carry your name. Let it wake. You must keep the secret. The veil that guards the city has not lifted. No one must know of its existence until the spell of the veil has failed or is lifted. Do not speak of this to anyone, not even Thorne yet.”
“You are more than a cadet now, Thaelyn,” Vaelen said. “You are Stormborn. Blood of Taranveil. Royal daughter, future Queen of the Lost City of Aeromir.”
She looked up, meeting his gaze. “I’m not ready to be a queen,” she whispered.
Vaelen replied, “Be something they never saw coming.”
And beneath her skin, she felt it, like the heartbeat of a storm still gathering. The truth of who she was. Thaelyn Taranveil Aeromir. Blood of Kings. Last of the Storm Crown. The storm was rising. The storm had a daughter again. And the world would remember her.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
The air beneath the Rift was not air at all. It was breath stolen from the dying; thin, cold, and endless. The cavern stretched like the hollowed ribcage of some long-dead God. Stone rose in jagged spires, and starlight leaked through cracks above. In the center, an altar of dark rock pulsed faintly with a heartbeat that did not belong to any living thing. Around it, runes burned the color of ash.
A thousand shadows knelt, silent, waiting. The Arch-Necromancer Maelor stood at the altar, his skeletal hand outstretched, the air trembling as he traced the curve of a rune in bloodfire. The sigil flared, and the room filled with the low, droning hum of the dead, the sound of a thousand whispering souls bound in servitude.
Then the light bent. From the space between moments, a shape emerged, tall, robed in living shadow, its outline more suggestion than form. The Shadow Sovereign had come. Morcarion did not walk. He arrived. One instant absence, the next, absolute presence. His voice slid through the air, neither sound nor echo, but somethingremembered. “My faithful.”
Every shadow in the room bowed deeper, the movement like wind rippling over a field of black water. Maelor bent low, his voice rasping through cracked lips. “My Lord. The wards of the southern ridge are falling faster than expected. The King’s armies weaken. The Aether girl’s presence has accelerated the thinning of the Veil.”
The Shadow Sovereign tilted his head slightly. Beneath the hood, his eyes glowed with faint red light, twin dying stars. “The heir awakens then. The storm has remembered its name.”
A whisper of silk and bone accompanied the arrival of the Triumvirate. Vaelgor, the Hollow Seer, appeared first, her pale face veiled, her empty eyes glowing faintly blue. “I have seen her,” she said. “Her light burns too brightly to last. But she walks beside flame, and their threads tangle. If they fuse,” She hesitated. “We may lose her to her destiny.”
Lyssara laughed softly, the sound as lovely as it was wrong. “Destiny can be rewritten,” she murmured. “If one knows where to cut the thread.” Her lips were painted black, her hands red from her last ritual. “The Prince’s heart already fractures. All it will take is a whisper.”
In the shadows, Kors shifted, heavy as a landslide. His runed armor of fused bone scraped the stone. “While you whisper,” he rumbled, “I build. The next legion rises from the old battlefields. The mountain will break under their march.”
Morcarion turned his burning gaze toward him. “Do not break the mountain yet. The storm and the flame must first believe they are safe. Hope makes the harvest sweeter.”
Maelor lifted his gaze, bone fingers tapping against his staff. “You would have us wait?”
“Patience, Maelor,” the Sovereign said, and even his whisper made the stone quake. “I have slept an age. I can sleep one more.”
Lyssara’s fingers twitched, weaving invisible patterns in the air. “The Queen still moves against us,” she said quietly. “Her visions cloud my sight. She wards the girl too closely. We cannot touch her without drawing the King’s eye.” Lyssara’s smile widened, slow and venomous. “Then we draw his son’s instead.”
Maelor’s head snapped toward her. “You would risk the Prime Bond? If we kill one, the other may awaken fully.”
Morcarion lifted a single shadowed hand, silencing them. “Not kill.” His voice curled through their minds like smoke. “Corrupt. Corruption is slower. Sweeter. When flame burns black, the storm will come willingly.”
The runes around the altar pulsed brighter, alive with approval.
“Then our second wave begins,” Maelor said softly, eyes gleaming like the ghosts trapped in his flesh. “The girl’s Aether will heal no more soldiers. Thorne will see her as a danger, and she will believe herself cursed. Once divided, they will be easy to claim.”
Morcarion stepped closer to the altar, and for the first time, the flicker of his face appeared in the wavering light. Once human, perhaps, before the Rift had swallowed him, his features were sharp, hollowed, his smile wrong in ways the mind refused to hold.
“Soon,” he said, his voice reverent. “The Prime Bond will rise again, not as savior, but as seal. The Rift shall open, and through it, I shall walk.”
Kaen stepped forward, unflinching. “You summoned me.”
Maelor’s grin revealed too many teeth. “No, little Prince.You called us.”
The Rift pulsed, a low vibration that rattled the marrow of the world. Shadows rippled along Kaen’s boots, reaching, tasting.
