Page 44 of A Court of Thralls and Thorns

I slipped inside, and the door shut behind me with a finality.

The air here was different.

It smelled of parchment and metal, of aged ink and something faintly electric.

Unlike the torches in the halls, this room was illuminated by massive illumination crystals, much larger than the ones in our barracks. They were embedded in the stone ceiling, casting a bright, cold glow across the chamber.

Rows of shelves lined the walls, filled with scrolls, books, and sealed chests. Some bore royal insignias, others had no markings at all.

Then there were the treasures, but I wasn’t here for those.

I scanned the space, my pulse quickening.

“Now, where would a royal hide nefarious correspondence?”

I moved quickly, skimming the spines of the books and ledgers stacked along the shelves, my fingers trailing over their worn bindings. Some were unmarked, some bore the royal insignia, and others…

Noble Bloodlines & Marriages

I pulled the hefty journal free, flipping it open. The entries were dated, but the first thing I noticed was that the journal itself was over fifty years old.

My brow furrowed.

The noble marriages recorded in these pages hadn’t even happened yet when this book was written.

Arranged.

The word settled in my chest like a rock.

I had never heard that all noble marriages were arranged, but if this book was accurate, they had been—carefully plotted and recorded long before the couples had even been born.

A shiver crawled down my spine.

How much of Warriath’s noble bloodline had been designed?

How much of it had been calculated?

I shoved the journal back onto the shelf and reached for another.

Interviews with the Sole Survivor

I flipped it open, and my breath caught.

This wasn’t just any record—this was firsthand knowledge of the Fae Realm before the war with the Blood Fae.

The pages described a world untouched by darkness, where the land thrived in harmony, where the fae lived in peaceful co-existence with nature.

There had been no Dark Fae.

No twisted, monstrous creatures.

The descriptions were so breathtakingly beautiful, it was easy to forget that the Blood Fae were once nature-loving beings—before they turned on us. Before they sought our destruction.

I ran a hand through my hair. How had this survivor escaped? Who had they been?

Time was running out.

I had to leave before sunrise, before anyone discovered I was gone.