Page 10 of A Court of Wings and Shadows

“They think I’m on the wrong side,” I admitted. “That I belong to them somehow. They want something from me.”

Silence fell like a hammer. No one moved.

Riven was the first to speak, her voice careful. “When you say they want something… do you mean information, or?—”

“I don’t know,” I cut in. “Not exactly. They speak in riddles. Warnings. One of them said my blood would open what’s been sealed.”

Cordelle’s mouth parted, a whisper of awe in his expression.

“I haven’t told you everything,” I continued, my voice barely above a whisper. “There have been… encounters. Before Eilvin’s death. One came to me in the tunnels. Another met me in the glade near the cliffs. They didn’t try to kill me. They tried toclaimme.”

Jax swore softly under his breath. Tae muttered something I didn’t catch.

“I don’t know why,” I said. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but the more I learn, the more it all feels… connected.”

Riven leaned forward, brows drawn. “Could it be tied to the weapon Cordelle mentioned? The one the king might be hunting?”

“The Light Fae weapon?” Cordelle asked, eyes narrowing. “You thinkAshecould be the key tobothsides?”

“Think about it,” Riven said, glancing around at the others. “The Blood Fae are hunting her, but they don’t want her dead. And the king, he’s been acting pretty strange lately. There is more to this. I know it.”

Ferrula’s lips tightened. “If that’s true… Ash isn’t just in danger. Sheisthe danger.”

A chill ran down my spine.

“I didn’t ask for this,” I said, the words raw and sharp. “But whatever it is they want, I won’t let them have it. Not the king. Not the fae. No one.”

Naia nodded slowly. “Then we figure it out. Together.”

Jax crossed his arms. “And next time they come for you, we’ll be ready.”

Cordelle looked up at me, his voice quiet but sure. “If they think you’re a descendant of some ancient bloodline… a powerful one… then maybe that’s the piece we’ve been missing all along.”

Riven held my gaze. “And maybe,” she said, “you’re not just part of the weapon.”

“Maybe,” she whispered, “you are the weapon.”

The room went quiet after Riven’s words settled into the cracks of our thoughts.

Maybe you are the weapon.

No one had a response to that.

We sat in that stillness, breaths soft, minds spinning, until Cordelle quietly reopened the leather-bound tome his father had smuggled out of the Lorekeeper’s archives. The parchment rustled softly beneath his fingers as he hunched over the page, eyes scanning the ancient script by glowstone light.

The rest of us moved around him like ghosts. Naia and Ferrula got into their beds, followed by Riven and Tae. I waiteduntil Jax returned from the washroom, face flushed from cold water and quiet reflection. Then I went, scrubbing away the ache in my muscles and the sting behind my eyes.

By the time we were dressed in our nightclothes and tucked into cots, Cordelle still hadn’t looked up.

Then he gasped and sat up so fast his bunk groaned under him.

“I found something.”

We all turned toward him as one.

Cordelle held the book open, finger trembling over a section of faded ink. “This book references something called theVirelith Crystal.”

“What is it?” Jax asked, swinging his legs over the side of his bed.