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But I’m not listening anymore. I’m remembering every headache after our coffee talks that I blamed on dehydration.

Every moment of bone-deep exhaustion I attributed to stress.

Every time I felt disconnected from myself, like something essential was missing, when it was actually systematic suppression disguised as care.

He’s been destroying my true nature because he preferred the broken human version.

Because he wanted to own a weapon instead of love a person.

In the Unseelie gallery, Kieran’s smile turns razor-sharp as Davis’s careful performance crumbles. Political maneuvering at its finest—let your enemies destroy themselves with their own weapons.

From the Seelie gallery, crystalline laughter rings out like breaking glass made of malice.

“How utterly illuminating,” Lady Amarantha purrs, rising with grace that makes light bend around her form. Her violet eyes gleam with predatory delight. “Perhaps our dear candidate requires sanctuary from these... overwhelming influences.”

Every head in the chamber turns toward her, shock rippling through the assembly like waves hitting shore.

“The Seelie Court has long valued careful consideration of such... delicate matters,” she continues with the kind of gracious concern that hides knives. “Questions of magical coercion, mental manipulation, the capacity for truly free choice under supernatural influence.”

Dread spreads through my bones like poison as understanding crashes over me. She’s not defending Davis—she’s using him.

“Perhaps,” Amarantha suggests, “the candidate requires time away from magical influences to determine her authentic desires. Uncontaminated by supernatural persuasion.”

Graves’ eyes light up with predatory recognition. An alliance he never expected but will willingly exploit.

“The Seelie Court offers such... clarity,” she continues with silken malice. “Protected space for the candidate to explore her true nature without... external pressures.”

“Seconded,” Graves says immediately, stepping forward. “Joint human-Seelie supervision would ensure objective evaluation.”

The scope of their betrayal crashes over me like a tidal wave: they want to cut me off from my awakened nature, my bonds, everything I’ve discovered about myself. Turn me back into the weapon they preferred.

And they’re calling it rescue.

Davis steps forward, emboldened by unexpected support. “Ash, please.” His voice breaks like a man watching his world end. “Let me help you remember who you were before they got their claws in you. Remember us. Remember what we had.”

His eyes burn with obsessive conviction that makes my thorns recoil beneath my skin, seeking shelter from something that feels fundamentally wrong.

“I request the right to pose a question,” Graves announces, his voice carrying military authority across the chamber like a blade through silk.

The chamber goes dead silent except for the sound of my heart trying to hammer its way out of my chest.

“That is... unprecedented,” Master Valeborn protests, but uncertainty makes his voice waver.

Amarantha’s crystalline laughter fills the void like poison gas. “How delightfully bold. The Seelie Court recognizes the human delegation’s right to representation.”

She gestures gracefully toward the Truth Stone, violet eyes glittering with malicious anticipation. “After all, if the candidate truly has human attachments, shouldn’t those bonds be... examined?”

Stone drops into my stomach. They’re going to force me back to the Truth Stone. Back to that agonizing magical invasion that strips away every defense and leaves me bleeding truth from every pore.

Graves steps forward, steel-blue eyes burning with total confidence. He genuinely believes he’s about to win. About to prove that everything I feel is artificial, everything I’ve chosen is programming, everything I am is his weapon wearing someone else’s clothes.

“Place your hands on the stone, Agent,” he commands with that familiar authority that’s shaped eight years of my life.

I want to refuse. Every instinct screams against subjecting myself to that violation again. But magical compulsion draws me forward like invisible chains, because the trial isn’t over until all parties are satisfied.

The Truth Stone flares to life the moment my palms touch its surface. Agony explodes through my skull as ancient magic burrows into my consciousness again, seeking whatever truth Graves wants exposed.

But this time, something’s different.

Graves’ voice carries across the chamber with total certainty: “When you strip away magical influence, political pressure, and supernatural manipulation—who do you truly choose to stand beside? Who has earned your authentic loyalty through genuine care, not magical compulsion?”

The stone erupts with silver fire.

I expect brutal invasion, but the Truth Stone recognizes something I don’t—this question is wrong, loaded with false assumptions, designed to force a predetermined answer.

Truth magic doesn’t just reveal. It corrects.

The images that explode above my head aren’t what Graves expects to see.

Memory after memory bursts into brilliant holographic detail:

Kieran carrying me from boundary hunters, choosing to risk his father’s wrath to keep me safe. The way his shadows wrapped around me like armor, like he’d rather die than let anything hurt me.

Finnian trusting me with forbidden knowledge despite political consequences that could see him executed for treason. His amber eyes holding faith in my potential when I had none in myself.

Orion standing with me against Wild Court judgment, defying ancient protocols because he saw something in me worth protecting. The guardian oath that binds him not to my power but to my person.

All three of them seeing my darkest revelations tonight and choosing to stay. Choosing to burn with protective fury instead of walking away.

Then the stone shows the human “care”:

Davis systematically poisoning my coffee with iron supplements, watching my magic dim with satisfaction. Years of deliberate suppression disguised as love.

Graves positioning me as a weapon while calling it protection, training me to seek approval from authority figures, shaping me into something that would never question orders.

Years of carefully constructed isolation from anything that might make me question my role as property.

The truth that emerges isn’t what Graves asked for—it’s what the Truth Stone determines he needs to hear:

“The bonds formed through choice, sacrifice, and acceptance are authentic. The bonds formed through deception, control, and suppression are false.”

The words reverberate through the chamber with the weight of absolute truth, making stone walls ring like temple bells.

The relief hits like a tidal wave, washing away months of doubt and self-recrimination.

Every moment of wondering if I was broken. Every question about whether my feelings were real or just trauma response. Every fear that I was too damaged for authentic connection.

Stripped away by magic that cannot lie.

I choose them. Not because I’m programmed to. Not because I’m broken. Because they see me—really see me—and stay anyway. That’s not conditioning. That’s love.

And now everyone knows it.

When the Truth Stone’s final pulse sends me crumpling to my knees, it’s not from agony alone.

It’s from relief so pure it makes something crack open in my chest.

In the Wild Court gallery, Orion’s guardian oath blazes like a brand between his thumb and forefinger as he watches me collapse. Academy barriers hum with centuries of accumulated power, magical containment woven from ancient oaths.

But guardian bonds are older. Primal. Written in the first magic.

“Guardian.” The Morrigan’s voice cuts through chaos as power builds around Orion like a gathering storm. “Your oath or their law?”

Orion’s amber eyes find me collapsed and bleeding on ancient stone, and something fundamental snaps in his chest.

“No fucking contest.” His eyes burn with primal certainty. “She’s bleeding and they want to debate protocols? Screw their law.”

Power explodes from his skin. The guardian tattoo blazes with fire that makes crystal fixtures ring like struck bells. Academy barriers—woven from centuries of oaths—meet something older and angrier.

The containment shatters like glass hitting bedrock.

Magic rebounds through his body like liquid lightning. Every nerve ending screams as Academy defenses lash back. Blood fills his mouth. His knees buckle.

But he’s already moving, already reaching for me.

Orion drops to his knees beside the dais, one hand hovering over my trembling form.

“Can I touch you?” The words tear from his throat like broken glass, like asking permission for breathing. “After all the lies, all the manipulation—I won’t take anything you don’t want to give.”

My eyes flutter open, unfocused with exhaustion and magical strain. “Please.”

His arms fold around me carefully, like I’m something precious that might shatter. Heat radiates from his skin, chasing away the Truth Stone’s invasive cold.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my hair, voice rough with barely contained rage. “You’re not alone. Not anymore. They want to break you apart? They go through me first.”

Strong arms and warmth, and for the first time since entering this chamber, I can breathe. This. This is what choosing feels like. Not the desperate attachment Davis described, but recognition. Home. The missing piece of myself I never knew was missing.

Davis staggers backward, his obsessive certainty shattered by truth he can’t deny or manipulate or suppress.

Graves stares at the stone like it personally betrayed him, steel composure gone.

And Amarantha... Amarantha’s perfect composure fractures as she realizes what just happened. She granted Graves this question expecting it to destabilize my claims.

Instead, she just provided irrefutable magical proof that human “protection” was systematic abuse—and that the Fae bonds are legitimate.

For exactly three heartbeats.

Then her violet eyes sharpen with predatory calculation, and her smile returns like winter sunrise—beautiful and deadly.

“How utterly illuminating,” she purrs. “The magical deception runs far deeper than even I anticipated.”

But Amarantha didn’t survive two millennia of court politics by accepting defeat gracefully. If she can’t prove the bonds are false, she’ll have to break them entirely.

The Morrigan surges to her feet, battle leathers creaking. “The trial has concluded! The candidate has proven her worthiness beyond any doubt. Ancient law demands?—”

“Has she?” Amarantha’s crystalline laughter cuts through the Morrigan’s protest like a blade through silk. “Or has she simply demonstrated the extent to which magical manipulation has corrupted her perception of reality?”

Ice crystallizes in my veins as understanding crashes over me. She’s not admitting defeat. She’s doubling down.

“The candidate believes her feelings to be authentic,” Amarantha continues, “but magical bonds this deep require... extraction. Careful removal to determine what lies beneath the supernatural influence.”

The Morrigan’s silver eyes blaze with ancient fury. “You dare question truth magic itself?”

“I question nothing,” Amarantha replies. “I simply observe that truth filtered through magical corruption may not be truth at all. The candidate requires deeper examination.”

“The Trial of Truth is complete!” The Morrigan’s voice carries the weight of centuries, making crystal fixtures ring. “Ancient law demands?—”

“Ancient law,” Amarantha interrupts with a smile sharp as breaking glass, “provides for additional trials when the first reveals contamination this extensive. The Trial of Power offers such... clarity. It will strip away every magical influence, every supernatural conditioning, revealing her authentic nature beneath all that beautiful deception.”

Terror spreads through my bones as her meaning becomes clear. The Trial of Power doesn’t just test magical ability—it can sever magical bonds entirely.

Graves steps forward, steel-blue eyes lighting up with renewed hope. “The Seelie Court’s wisdom is... appreciated. Agent Morgan requires protection from influences beyond her comprehension. She’s been compromised by forces she can’t recognize or resist.”

“The human delegation will remain,” Amarantha announces with crushing finality, “to provide objective perspective during the extraction process.”

The Morrigan’s face goes white with rage, but she’s trapped by the very laws she invoked. Ancient protocols that seemed like protection have become weapons aimed at my heart.

“Three days,” Amarantha continues with victorious satisfaction. “The Trial of Power begins at twilight on the next dark moon. Until then, the candidate will remain in protective custody to prevent further magical contamination.”

I try to speak, to protest, but exhaustion crashes over me like a tidal wave. The Truth Stone’s magic has drained everything I have left.

Orion’s arms tighten around me as magical barriers spring up around the dais, separating us from the gallery where Kieran’s pale eyes burn with helpless fury and Finnian’s amber gaze holds desperate determination.

As Amarantha’s final words echo through the chamber—”We shall discover who she truly is beneath all that beautiful deception”—I feel Orion’s heartbeat against my back, steady and real and absolutely mine.

They think they can break me apart and rebuild me into something safer. Something that won’t fight back. Something grateful for the cage.

But I’m not glass that shatters clean.

I’m the kind of broken that leaves jagged edges.

And if they want to reforge me, they’ll have to survive the blaze.

They’re about to learn that some things, once broken, become infinitely more dangerous.