Page 60

“You were nearly committing regicide through ignorance,” the Morrigan cuts her off with words that hit like physical blows. “Forced glamour removal on concealment woven into royal essence. Do you comprehend how close you came to murdering the last royal heir?”

The words slam through my reconstructed skeleton like hammers, each impact making my new bones ring like struck bells. Glamour woven into my essence—not just concealment, but protection that has become part of my fundamental nature. The person I thought I was doesn’t exist.

Never existed.

Was always just a mask over something far more dangerous.

“The concealment was not mere glamour,” the Morrigan continues, her ancient gaze settling on my half-transformed form with something that might be approval. “It was survival magic. The kind that makes the bearer forget it exists, because remembering would make hiding impossible.”

She kneels beside me, her touch surprisingly gentle as she helps me sit upright on legs that are longer than they should be. “Forced removal of essence-deep concealment can destroy the bearer. You came within heartbeats of killing what you sought to examine.”

“Then how,” Lord Malachar demands, though his voice carries less authority in her presence, shadows retreating from the ancient power she radiates, “do we verify?—”

“Wild Court tests our own,” the Morrigan interrupts with finality that brooks no argument and makes the chamber walls groan ominously. “Always. It is ancient law, predating your modern courts by millennia.”

She stands, authority radiating from every line of her form like heat from a forge. Around her, the air itself seems to bow in submission, particles of dust dancing in patterns that spell out words in languages older than civilization.

Lady Amarantha argues “The child will face our trials first, as is traditional and proper. If she survives, you shall have your wild court trials. If she fails...”

The implication hangs in the air like a blade poised to fall.

“And if we refuse?” Morrigan seethes.

“Then you break the accords that have kept our peoples from total war for centuries,” Amarantha replies with a smile sharp as breaking ice and twice as deadly. “I am certain your respective rulers would be... interested... in that political choice.”

Silence stretches through the chamber as political implications settle like ash after an explosion. The ancient accords—treaties that predate current governments, that form the foundation of everything that passes for civilization among the Fae.

“The human,” Lord Malachar says finally, gesturing toward Davis with shadows that probe his restraints like testing fingers. “Remains as insurance of cooperation.”

“Agreed,” the Morrigan says without consulting me, though I catch the way her eyes narrow slightly. “Though harm him unnecessarily and face Wild Court justice. We protect all who serve our interests, regardless of species.”

Davis meets my eyes across the chamber, and for a moment, I see something that might be understanding.

Or perhaps just resignation to circumstances beyond either of our control.

But there’s something else there too—a flicker of recognition, as if he’s seeing something in my transformed features that he’s been expecting.

Something that suggests his presence here isn’t as accidental as it appears.

The Morrigan turns to me, ancient eyes holding secrets that could reshape reality with a careless thought.

“Come, child,” she says, extending a hand scarred by centuries of warfare and wisdom. “Time to learn what you truly are.”

“Oh and Morrigan,” Amarantha’s syrupy voice calls back to us. “She has one moon cycle to recover and then she faces the trial of truth. At twilight.”

“Bitch.” Morrigan mutters only for my ears.

I struggle to my feet on legs that are longer than they should be, in a body that feels both foreign and more real than anything I’ve ever experienced. The glamour that concealed my nature lies in tatters around me, leaving me raw and exposed but finally, terrifyingly authentic.

Every movement sends new sensations through reconstructed nerves—I’m taller, stronger, my senses sharpened to painful intensity where I can smell fear and magic and ancient power.

This is what I really am beneath the protective lies.

“The real tests begin now,” the Morrigan continues, though whether she’s addressing me or the assembled courts remains unclear.

As I follow her toward the door, Whispen’s voice whispers in my ear with something that might be pride mixed with terror.

“Now you begin to really wake, root-born. Now you begin to see .”

Behind us, three courts watch with hunger and calculation and fear. Ahead lies whatever trial awaits someone who’s just discovered that everything she thought she knew about herself was a carefully constructed protection that nearly became her death.

But for the first time since this nightmare began, I’m not walking into the unknown alone.

The Morrigan’s presence beside me feels like armor against whatever’s coming next.

Even if I’m not entirely sure whose side she’s really on.

Even if I’m no longer sure who I really am.

Even if the woman I thought I was just died on a chamber floor, and I’m something else entirely now.