Page 170 of A Court of Wings and Shadows

As the image of the caged dragon snapped and fluttered in the wind, I couldn’t breathe.

How could anyone think they could cage a dragon?I asked silently, the words bitter in my throat.

Kaelith didn’t hesitate. Her voice rolled through my mind like thunder off a distant mountain.They don’t mean a real cage, little storm. The prison is metaphorical. They mean to bind us. Like the Blood Fae do to our hatchlings.

I blinked, anger crackling just beneath my skin.How do you know that?

Her reply came softer, more thoughtful.Siergen has been tracking the roots of these sects. The human one—the Crimson Sigil—they have ties to the Order.

My jaw clenched so tightly my teeth ached.Of course they do.

Solei had all but said it. She’d warned me something was moving beneath the surface, but I hadn’t wanted to believe it. Not that the very organization that raised me, that crafted me, might desire every fae bloodline wiped from the continent.

But if Solei truly supports the Sigil,I said,why would she warn me? Why protect me?

Because even within a venomous tree,Kaelith rumbled,there may be branches that twist in different directions.

She paused, the burden in her mind shifting gently across mine.

Siergen has been traveling between kingdoms. Quietly. Carefully. He believes there’s more to this uprising… especially the timing.

I nodded slightly, gazing across the Ascension Grounds where murmurs were rising like smoke between the riders.

I can see why,I whispered inwardly.The king’s sudden decline. The surge in Blood Fae attacks. Now two new sects rising up against the throne, and the riders. It’s too coordinated to be coincidence.

Kaelith agreed, her voice edged with quiet fury.He believes one of these sects is an outlier. A false flag. They are not allies, Ashlyn. They are working against one another. And we must find their leaders to know the truth behind the chaos.

I exhaled slowly, letting that sink in.

No one sees Siergen,I murmured.He’s always helping us, slipping between places like a breeze in the walls… but I feel him. I think he cares more than anyone knows.

Kaelith didn’t respond right away.

Then, after a pause that felt like a heartbeat caught in a flame, she said,

Siergen’s sacrifice is greater than any creature alive.

The words dropped like an anvil on my chest.

My heart stuttered.

Kaelith…

But before I could reach further, she pulled back from the bond, gently but completely.

And not before I felt the flicker of pain she hadn’t meant to share.

The kind of pain that only came from love. From loss. From a little red dragon whose burdens were far deeper than his jokes.

Kaelith loved him.

And suddenly, I didn’t just want to know what Siergen had sacrificed.

I needed to know why.

Major Kaler stood at the edge of the platform, the red sickle banner still snapping behind him, but it was the dragon-cage banner that hung heavier in the air. His voice, usually cool and measured, held a sharpness now—one honed by frustration.

“The dissension is growing,” he announced to the gathered guilds, his eyes sweeping over the riders, warders, and assembled squads. “Some noble houses in the outer kingdoms have withdrawn communication. They’ve lost faith in our ability to protect them.”