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Her ancient eyes hold the weight of millennia, dark and knowing.

“Eternal spring meets endless winter, with no wise autumn to teach them balance. Crops wither. Seasons forget their names. The earth herself grows weary when court magic becomes... unbalanced.” Her smile turns sharp as winter stars.

“She is not merely political salvation, darling—she is the world’s last hope for sanity. ”

“Which means,” I say slowly, pieces clicking together, “she was hidden for a reason. And if she’s awakening now...” My humor fades as the oath mark pulses with renewed intensity. “She’s in danger. Real danger.”

“Royal Wild Court blood,” Elder Thornroot says heavily. “The last of the Moonshadow line.”

Elder Mistfeather leans forward, wings extending slightly with agitation. “If she is what you claim—if the prophecy awakens—then all courts will hunt her fiercer than wolves after fawns. Especially once they realize what her existence means for the treasures.”

“The treasures,” whispers Elder Rootsinger. “The cauldron we protect...”

Thornroot continues, counting on gnarled fingers: “The spear in Unseelie hands, the crown hidden at the Academy, the stone Amarantha secretly holds. The prophecy says they must be united by royal Wild blood.”

The mention of the Unseelie spear makes my jaw clench involuntarily. The way Kieran watched Ash during our combat demonstration—that cold, calculating gaze that missed nothing.

“When the four treasures dance as one,” The Morrigan says, voice dropping to a hypnotic whisper, “three paths unfold like roses with thorns. To shatter what was, to bind what is, or to birth what could be. The courts as we know them could crumble like autumn leaves... or bloom into something magnificent and terrible.”

“This is worse than I thought,” moans Dewblossom. “We’ll need at least twenty-seven varieties of ceremonial moss for the Unification Ritual!”

The council erupts in fresh arguments about ceremonial protocols while I wrestle with the implications. If Ash truly is royal Wild Court blood, everything changes—for her, for me, for the delicate balance we’ve maintained for centuries.

The Morrigan raises her hand, and silence falls like a curtain of midnight. “Enough,” she says softly, but her voice carries the authority of winter storms and summer lightning. Even the most vocal elders bow to her ancient power.

“The veil grows thin as spider silk,” The Morrigan says as the meeting draws to its close, voice like silk dragged over steel. “The changeling still dreams herself mortal. Her power sleeps like a dragon in winter—dormant, but not dead. Her true nature caged like starlight in a bottle.”

“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. ”

“Share her?” Fire explodes from my skin before I can contain it. “Every instinct I have says to burn anyone who looks at her wrong.” My hands clench into fists, actual embers flaring between my fingers. “But if she needs more than one of us—if her power demands it...”

I force the words through gritted teeth, each one tasting like ash and necessity. “Then I’ll learn to play nice with shadows and starlight. For her.”

The oath mark burns hotter, and I realize it’s not just binding me to protect her—it’s teaching me that sometimes protection means sacrifice. Even the sacrifice of exclusivity.

“Your blood sings a different song than your words, darling boy,” The Morrigan observes with that maddening, knowing smile.

“Three consorts.” The words taste like destiny and damnation. “Fire, shadow, and light all serving the same queen.”

“The prophecy demands its own cruel balance,” she replies, voice like dark chocolate and midnight promises. “Wild fire, shadow’s whisper, light’s gentle touch—all woven together through royal blood like threads in a tapestry none can unpick.”

“And if we tear each other apart fighting for her attention?”

Her smile turns wicked as sin and twice as beautiful. “Then you’ll discover what it truly means to serve something greater than your own desires, sweet boy.”

The Academy rises before us, its impossible architecture shifting in the moonlight.

A solitary figure moves through the pre-dawn darkness, practicing combat forms. Even at this distance, I recognize Ash.

But these aren’t human movements—they’re royal battle forms, biological imperatives encoded in bloodline magic.

Watching her execute them is like watching the dead walk.

My breath stops entirely. She moves like every fantasy I’ve ever had about wild queens and thorned crowns. Like she was born to rule me, to let me serve her fire with mine. The Cauldron burns against my ribs, recognizing its mistress even when she doesn’t know herself.

The blood oath mark flares with sudden, searing heat. My vision blurs, then sharpens. For a moment—just a heartbeat—I see her not as she appears, but as she could be. Taller, stronger, with thorn patterns spiraling across skin that glows with green-gold light.

Royal. Wild. Power incarnate.

And beautiful. So achingly beautiful it makes my chest hurt.

The Cauldron mark blazes across my chest like a brand, ancient magic recognizing something in the Academy’s wards that makes my bones sing with recognition. Through the artifact’s connection to life force itself, I feel her—not just her location, but the moment of her awakening.

Royal blood, finally free, the Cauldron pulses with pure joy. The bloodline we thought lost forever.

The weapon doesn’t just heal—it remembers. Every Wild Court royal it’s ever touched, every ceremony it’s witnessed, every sacred bond it’s helped forge. And right now, it’s screaming with certainty that she’s not just any changeling.

She’s THE changeling. The one we’ve been waiting for.

The one my family died trying to protect.

The Cauldron shows me her true heritage in flashes of green fire and thorned crowns, of power so vast it could reshape the courts or destroy them entirely.

She’s coming home, it whispers. And she’s going to need you to remember what you were born for.

“What do you want out of all this?” I ask The Morrigan suddenly. “You don’t just show up after centuries because you’re concerned about court politics.”

The Morrigan watches with ancient eyes that hold secrets older than starlight. A smile curves her lips—genuine warmth breaking through her mask of otherworldly authority.

“Perhaps,” she says, voice carrying smoky amusement and something deeper, “even ancient hearts grow weary of eternal solitude. Sometimes the darkness itself craves... companionship.”

I stare at her, caught completely off-guard.

For a moment, I’m struck speechless—this ancient warrior goddess wants friendship?

“You honor me,” I say simply, no jokes, no deflection.

Then my grin returns, genuine this time.

“But if we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.

Dinner with Ash tomorrow—let me show you both what real Wild Court hospitality looks like. ”

I say nothing more, unable to look away from the distant figure whose existence has suddenly become inextricably entangled with my own through an oath older than memory.

Guardian to her royal. Root-Bound to her thorn-marked. Flame to her earth. Bound by blood that remembers what minds forget.

And possibly sharing her with that cold shadow-bastard Kieran and scholarly Finnian, if the prophecy demands it. The thought should enrage me.

Instead, heat pools low in my belly, the oath mark pulsing with ancient knowledge.

In the distance, her training form falters as she clutches her own arm where identical patterns lie hidden. Our magic calls to each other, already forming connections without permission or ritual.

On the western tower, frost spreads across stone as Kieran materializes from shadows, his attention fixed on the same woman.

The Morrigan appears beside me like shadows given form. “The binding begins, with or without ritual’s blessing,” she says, voice like prophecy made flesh.

“Three paths,” the words tear from my throat like an oath I was born to speak. My hand presses against the Cauldron’s mark as ancient knowledge floods through me. “She’s not just royal blood—she’s the key to everything we’ve lost. And I’m bound to her whether she knows it or not.”

“Yes,” she confirms, voice soft as midnight velvet. “And she must choose her path like a queen choosing her crown. But first, she must survive the storm her awakening will unleash upon all our worlds.”

This is going to be one hell of a complication.