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“Then what do we do?” Elder Rootsinger asks. “If we reveal her nature too soon, we risk everything. If we wait too long, the other courts may move first.”

The Morrigan rises, her presence expanding like shadows at twilight. “The Wild Court will watch. Orion will continue his dance at their Academy, circling the changeling like flame around kindling.” Her smile turns predatory. “And I will join this masquerade—as a guest lecturer in the ancient arts of war.”

Several elders look alarmed at this pronouncement.

“The Seelie and Unseelie representatives will object like bees to smoke,” Elder Thornroot warns.

The Morrigan’s smile turns deadly beautiful. “Let them buzz and flutter, little darlings. I was carving battle forms into stone when their ancestors were still learning to make pretty lights with twigs.”

“If they try anything stupid, I’ll provide a live demonstration of why that’s a bad idea,” I offer.

The Morrigan nods once to the assembled elders, regal as a dark queen. “Prepare your hearts for what comes,” she says simply, voice carrying the weight of prophecy. One by one, they bow and melt back into the forest shadows.

After the council disperses, The Morrigan gestures for me to walk with her through the moonlit forest paths leading back toward the Academy.

“You have questions,” she observes as we move between silver-dappled shadows, voice like expensive wine in crystal glasses.

“You’re telling me my family’s been waiting centuries for her?” My voice roughens with emotion I don’t try to hide. “Then she gets everything I have to give. Protection, power, my life if necessary. The guardian oath isn’t a burden—it’s a privilege.”

“When winter wolves howl at royal doors, wise mothers teach their roses to bloom as thorns,” she says, voice like whiskey and secrets. “Hidden so deep in borrowed skin that even the heart forgets its own rhythm. Years pass like falling leaves—each one stealing another piece of what was, until only echoes remain.”

“But she doesn’t look Fae,” I point out. “No pointed ears, normal human proportions. How is that possible if she’s royal bloodline?”

“The cruelest magic,” she purrs, silver eyes gleaming like starlight on water. “Flesh woven with stranger’s thread, bone shaped by foreign dreams. The deepest enchantment—to make the lie become living truth, until awakening tears the borrowed skin away like old silk.”

“What triggered it?” I ask.

“Threat. Need. The Balance itself responding to imbalance. The courts have grown too rigid, too separate from their original purpose.”

“So you’re saying the universe itself brought her to the Academy?” I ask, then allow myself a small grin. “And here I thought it was just destiny finally getting its act together.”

We walk in silence for several moments, the forest unusually quiet around us.

“What happened to her parents?” I finally ask. “The last royal family was killed during the Shattering, but she survived. How?”

The Morrigan’s face becomes a mask of shadow and starlight. “Some questions are thorns that draw blood when grasped, sweet boy. The past has teeth—sometimes it’s kinder to let sleeping wolves lie.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” she agrees, voice soft as velvet, sharp as winter wind. “But some truths must be earned rather than given.”

“What does the guardian oath mean for me?” I ask instead. “If it activates fully—what changes?”

The Morrigan stops, turning to face me with eyes like liquid silver under moonlight. “It means your life becomes a song sung in harmony with another’s heartbeat. The guardian’s oath binds you to protect, to guide, to serve royal blood—not as chains bind a prisoner, but as roots bind the earth. Essential. Powerful. Eternal.”

“My blood already knows hers,” I say simply. “The moment I saw her, something in me recognized home.”

“Blood calls to blood like flame to kindling,” The Morrigan says, voice hypnotic as falling water. “Hers will sing to yours when the awakening comes fully. Guardian and royal—two dancers spinning the same ancient waltz, each incomplete without the other’s grace.”

She begins walking again, voice dropping to smoky conspiracy. “Of course, the prophecy weaves complications like thorns through rose gardens.”

“How so?”

“Three paths spiral before her like serpents dancing,” The Morrigan quotes, voice taking on the cadence of ancient prophecy. “To shatter what was, to chain what is, or to birth what dreams of being. The changeling must choose between three destinies—and if whispers speak truth, between three hearts that would claim her as their own.”

I stumble slightly. “Wait. Three consorts? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Ah, you’ve tasted the ice prince’s hunger as well,” she observes, amusement dancing in her voice like fireflies. “Cold as winter’s heart, that one—but even glaciers melt when kissed by flame. And sweet Finnian has always been drawn to forbidden texts... especially when they’re written in living flesh.”