Stellen reaches for my hands, gently turning my right handpalm up. Only the blade’s hilt is visible across my skin right now, the remainder of it hidden beneath my training suit.
“We talked about the possibility that the False Queen had a Blood Fae at her disposal,” he says. “Someone who placed a blood bind on the hammer, specifically designed to adhere to you.”
I draw a sharp breath. “Which you already knew.”
When we spoke about it in the Alak-Teah, he phrased it as a hypothetical, leading me to the conclusion that the False Queen had foreseen my birth and put into play mechanisms to thwart me from breaking the curse.
“By having a Blood Fae forge the blade,” Stellen says, “the False Queen could tie the blade to her bloodline. It would explain why the weapon embedded itself into your arm as soon as you touched it, triggering it to become part of your body.”
“And why blade visions can physically control me,” I say. “My father told me to unwrap the blade and my path would be clear, but unwrapping the blade and touching it did this to me.”
I can’t keep the bitterness from my voice because a clear path has certainly not presented itself to me.
Stellen’s brow is suddenly furrowed. “He told you what?”
“‘Unwrap the blade and your path will be clear.’”
Stellen’s lips purse. “Did you?”
The answeryesrests on the tip of my tongue, but I take a moment. Of course I unwrapped the blade, but… “What do you mean?”
“When I first saw you, the ribbon was trailing from the blade,” Stellen says. “It was trapped between your palm and the blade’s hilt. The material was singing freely, but it hadn’t fully unwrapped. It never fully separated from the blade.”
My breathing catches as I realize it’s true.
“I didn’t fully unwrap it.” My focus flies to my arm. “And then…the blood bind pinned the ribbon in place.”
Stellen’s lips form a forbidding line. “Which we’ve already established seemed timed specifically so I can’t help you.”
‘Help.’
His forehead creases as if he’d realized what he said, but he doesn’t try to take it back.
It’s impossible to fight my small smile, even though it quickly fades. “My very first blade visions influenced my choices when I first met you. I didn’t know what the visions meant or why they were happening to me or how devastating they could be.”
Stellen pulls my chair to his, leaning forward to wrap me up in his arms, his cool cheeks easing the rising heat of my helplessness.
“Thyra.” The melody of my name rolling off his tongue demands my attention. “Do you remember when we spoke about the game the False Queen was playing with your fate, and I asked you: will you play for yourself or for the fate of every fae in the three kingdoms?”
I nod against his chest and give him the same answer I gave him then. “Both.”
“Both,” he says. “But you can’t do both at once. First, you must play for yourself.”
I tip my head back. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve spent the last week training hard. By doing so, you’ve taken steps to increase your chances of survival no matter what situation you find yourself in. This is good. But your next step has to be in service of removing this blood bind.”
“Which is impossible without a Blood Fae,” I whisper.
“Or if you can’t remove it, altering its purpose,” he continues, as if he won’t accept defeat.
My forehead creases. “How?”
Releasing me, Stellen reaches for the ornate box, lifting its lid.
It contains two objects. One, a scroll. The other, a small, circular container, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.
“This is the most ancient scroll in my possession,” Stellen says, pulling the parchment from the ornate box and carefully unrolling it. “It was written and illustrated by Ferocie Scribes.”
