Page 76 of A Court of Thralls and Thorns

Then, without another word, he turned and walked away, leaving me standing at my door.

The moment I stepped into the barracks, I could feel the tension. My squad was huddled around Cordelle’s bed, theirfaces lit with a mix of curiosity and something else… something almost reverent.

Jax glanced up first, his usual smirk in place, but there was something more serious beneath it.

“What’s going on?” I asked, shutting the door behind me.

Cordelle, perched on his cot, gestured to the worn book in his lap.

“I had my dad pull some ancient texts,” he said, voice laced with excitement.

“Did you find something about the war?” I asked, stepping closer.

“Better,” Jax said, crossing his arms.

My brows furrowed. “What?”

Cordelle pointed to a faded page, its edges yellowed with age.

“I think it might have something to do with you.”

My stomach dropped slightly, but I forced myself to sit down on the cot beside him.

“What are you talking about?” I pressed.

Cordelle carefully turned the book toward me, his finger tracing a passage written in elegant, looping script.

“This text is over a hundred years old,” he explained, “but fae live ten times longer than humans. That’s why halflings can reach a hundred and fifty years of age under the right circumstances. Longer if they’re dragon riders.”

I swallowed hard, my eyes lingering on the worn edges of the book in his hand.

“What does an old book have to do with me?”

He passed it to me.

“Read,” he urged.

I lowered my eyes to the aged parchment, my pulse picking up speed as I took in the words.

And as I read, the blood in my veins turned to ice.

The passage described a true fae, one of the last of his kind. The fae of old, before the Blood Fae corrupted their magic, before their skin turned gray and their eyes bled crimson.

He was impossibly old, yet his appearance remained unchanged, untouched by time like a relic from a forgotten era.

He who walks between realms, untouched by death, unseen by fate.

His silver hair shimmered like starlight, his violet eyes burning with ancient knowledge—the mark of a fae born before the Unification. But it was the final part of the passage that sent a chill down my spine.

The child of prophecy was taken from him before the first frost, hidden from fate’s eye, but the bloodline endures.

I stared at the words until they blurred.

“You think this is connected to me?” I finally said, my voice hushed, almost reluctant to say it aloud.

Jax rubbed his chin. “You are the first white-haired halfling in fifty years. I’d say odds are pretty damn good.”

Riven touched my arm, her fingers gentle, hesitant. “This could be… your biological father?”