Quinn blinked, still stunned. “I—If anyone finds out I showed you this… I could be executed.”
“And if anyone finds out who we are,” I added, standing beside Zander, “we won’t survive long enough to stop what’s coming.”
Quinn looked between us, jaw tight, expression torn.
Then he nodded.
“I’ll keep your secret… if you keep mine.” He glanced at the pool, still faintly glowing where we’d touched it. “No one else knows how bad it’s gotten. And if the elders won’t listen... maybe the dragons will.”
Zander extended a hand. “Then we’re agreed.”
Quinn took it. “We were never here.”
“Exactly,” I said, casting one last glance at the fading light of the pool.
The glow still lingered in my veins as we turned from the chamber, but it wasn’t a comfort, it was a hollowing.
I felt… drained.
Not like after battle or training, but as if something inside me had been gently, deliberatelytaken.My magic didn’t spark at my fingertips the way it usually did. Instead, it felt like it had sunken deeper into my bones, quiet, slumbering, as if the pool had touched a part of me I didn’t fully understand.
Zander must have noticed. He brushed his hand against mine as we started back through the tunnel behind Quinn, his silence speaking louder than any question.
I didn’t say anything. Not yet.
The path seemed longer on the return. The flickering runes on the ceiling seemed dimmer now, or maybe we were just seeing things differently after what we’d learned.
Zander’s voice broke the quiet. “Tell me about the pool, Quinn. How did it get here?”
Quinn didn’t answer at first. His steps slowed, as if the weight of the answer itself demanded reverence.
“It was part of the treaty,” he said finally. “When the first alliance between the fae and humans was forged. As a sign of good faith, the fae gifted the pool to Warriath.”
Zander lifted a brow. “A magical baptism.”
Quinn nodded. “The first generation of human leaders, those selected to bind themselves to fae partners, bathed in the pool before their wedding rites.”
Zander sighed softly. “It gave them magic. Temporarily. Just enough to allow for magically endowed children.”
“Yes,” Quinn confirmed. “And there are texts… old, mostly incomplete. But they infer that human mothers would return to the pool during pregnancy. To strengthen the magic. To ensure the child would… have power.”
I blinked, realization tightening in my chest. “This is our origin story.”
Zander turned to me.
“This is where halflings were born,” I said softly. “The reason our species evenexists.The first generation created by the pool’s magic and the fae’s blood.”
Quinn’s voice was reverent now. “The pool of Warriath didn’t just defend the realm. It created the bridge between our two kinds.”
We walked in silence after that, our footsteps echoing through the stone, haunted by the past, and the crumbling future beneath our feet.
Chapter
Four
As we reached the heavy door that led out of the Warder Tower, Quinn suddenly stopped short, turning so fast the torchlight flickered across his face.
“Wait,” he said, voice tight with urgency. “Do you think… the fae prisoner would know a way to boost the pool’s power?”
