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“Will be to bind herself to Unseelie court service. Permanently. A new twenty-year contract, this time with royal Wild Court blood sworn to Unseelie authority, grateful for salvation and bound by magic she cannot break.” His eyes glitter with triumph.

“The perfect political asset. And the perfect chain to keep my heir exactly where he belongs.”

My knees threaten to buckle as the full scope becomes clear.

Twenty years of serving to protect Kestra, only to be trapped by a new hostage, a new chain.

The Spear burns so hot against my chest that I’m amazed it doesn’t brand through skin and bone.

“You do not want her dead. You want her enslaved. And you want me re-contracted.”

“I want my investments properly secured. Wild Court royal blood is too valuable to waste through execution. But it must serve the greater good rather than destabilizing established order.” He gestures.

“Life debts are remarkably effective. Ask your sister—she still honors hers to me, even after all these years.”

He snaps his fingers with casual cruelty that makes the air itself recoil. “Attend.”

A human woman materializes from shadows—middle-aged, wearing servant’s clothing. She moves to Father’s side in steps too even to be human, eyes fixed on nothing while her hands pour wine with trembling precision.

“Refreshment,” he commands without looking at her, as if she’s a piece of furniture that happens to pour wine.

She pours with hands that tremble from magical suppression, then retreats to hover nearby like a living decoration. Father doesn’t acknowledge her existence beyond utility. Sweat breaks across my forehead despite the arctic air, the Spear burning hot enough to sear flesh.

“You see how simple it becomes when expectations are properly... managed,” he continues conversationally, as if the enslaved woman isn’t three feet away. “Kestra learned that lesson beautifully. Humans serve. Fae rule. Order maintained.”

The woman’s eyes meet mine for just a moment—a flash of awareness trapped behind magical compulsion, terror and pleading and resignation all layered together in a gaze that will haunt my nightmares.

The same look I saw in Kestra’s eyes the day she realized the full scope of what I’d traded for her freedom.

The Spear’s burning reaches nuclear intensity, ancient power recognizing the absolute wrongness of what I’m witnessing.

“Your mother had similar delusions about choice,” Father adds, ice-blue eyes never leaving my face. “She believed love could overcome political necessity. Look how that ended.”

Shadows explode outward from my position in violent geometric patterns that crack the stone floor. The enslaved woman flinches but doesn’t move, can’t move, trapped in her magical prison while forced to witness my destruction.

“Careful,” Father warns with amusement that could freeze the sun itself. “Emotional displays are so... beneath royal dignity.”

“And my role in this masterpiece of manipulation?”

“Continue providing intelligence. Maintain your emotional attachment—it will be useful for controlling her once she is bound. And sign a new contract, naturally.” His ice-blue eyes hold mine.

“Another twenty years should suffice. By then, you will be properly broken in, and she will be so thoroughly conditioned that neither of you will remember what freedom felt like.”

The words land like poison in my veins. Another twenty years. Another two decades of being his perfectly controlled weapon, this time with Ash as the new leverage instead of Kestra. The same trap, reset with fresh bait.

I used to think protecting Ash was part of my mission.

Now I know she is the mission.

Not just a key to Wild Court restoration. Not a strategic pawn.

She’s the fucking point.

The Spear burns against my ribs with such intensity that I’m surprised the ancient weapon doesn’t burst into visible flame. Ancient power recognizing the injustice in every calculated word, screaming against the wrongness of what he’s planning.

It doesn’t want diplomacy.

It wants justice.

It wants her safe, even if it means turning on everything I’ve ever served.

My body wants to bow while my hands clench into fists—twenty years of conditioning warring with something newer.

“Of course,” I manage through a throat gone desert-dry.

“Excellent. The trial begins in two days at the dark moon. Your final assignment under the old contract.” His smile could freeze hellfire itself. “And the first test of our new arrangement. Plenty of time for desperation to properly... ripen.”

The dismissal hits like a physical blow, shadow magic ejecting me from the throne room with brutal efficiency. My last image is of the enslaved woman’s terrified eyes—a preview of what he plans to do to Ash, dressed in the language of salvation and political necessity.

The Spear’s outline burns beneath my skin as ancient magic screams against injustice. For seven centuries, this weapon has been content with measured truth, careful revelation, surgical precision in its justice.

Tonight, it wants blood.

The artifact doesn’t whisper—it roars. Every lie my father just spoke, every manipulation disguised as strategy, every moment he’s treated her like a chess piece rather than the woman who’s become the center of my existence.

She doesn’t deserve this, the Spear pulses against my ribs. And neither do you.

The truth it reveals isn’t about her—it’s about me. About the choice I’ve been avoiding since the moment I saw her.

Duty to my father’s crown, or loyalty to something that feels more real than any throne.

My shoulders drop as something I’ve carried for twenty years finally lets go.

I materialize in the Academy’s restricted archive, expecting empty silence and the familiar comfort of ancient texts.

Instead, I find Finnian hunched over research materials, but something’s wrong.

Hair falls across his forehead in uncharacteristic disarray while his fingers drum against the table in patterns that spell out anxiety.

Interrogation equipment glints on a side table—truth serums that glow with malevolent light, compulsion crystals designed to shatter mental defenses, devices created specifically to extract information through magical coercion. The metallic scent of blood lingers in the air like an accusation.

“Kieran?” He looks up with startled guilt, hastily covering the implements with a cloth that can’t hide what I’ve already seen. “I was not?—”

“You tortured Davis.” The realization hits me like ice water, not a question but recognition of shared moral compromise.

His face crumbles completely, composure shattering to reveal something raw and desperate underneath.

“I had to know about the trial. Had to understand what they would do to her.” He meets my gaze with desperate justification.

“He was poisoning her for three years, Kieran. Three years of systematic magical suppression while pretending to love her.”

I settle into the chair across from him, leaning forward until the space between us becomes charged with shared conspiracy.

His shoulders drop like he’s been holding his breath for hours.

The Spear’s burning finally begins to ease, as if proximity to someone who shares my moral destruction provides some kind of relief. “How far did you go?”

“Far enough to break him. Far enough to learn things I wish I could forget.” His voice carries self-recrimination that cuts deeper than any blade. “Far enough to discover that everything we do to protect her might be destroying who she actually is.”

The admission hangs between us like a confession neither wanted to make but both needed to hear.

“I crossed lines I swore I would never cross, boundaries I believed were fundamental to who I am as both scholar and man,” he says, staring at his hands like they belong to someone else.

“I have always believed knowledge should illuminate—not destroy. But when it comes to her…” He swallows hard.

“I did not just want answers. I wanted vengeance. And that—” he breaks off, voice raw, “That terrifies me more than anything I found in Davis’s mind. ”

“Join the club,” I say grimly, shadows writhing. “Because I just learned my father saved her at the trial specifically to own her. And at the next trial, he plans to collect on that debt.”

Finnian’s head snaps up, mind already processing implications with devastating speed. “What do you mean?”

“The Trial of Power. In two days. They are forcing her to manifest all four treasures or face magical backlash that could kill her.” I meet his horrified gaze, letting him see the complete scope of the trap.

“Father created a life debt when he intervened, and he plans to use it to bind her to Unseelie service when she fails.”

“That is...” His amber eyes go wide with understanding. “That is not execution. That is slavery. Political enslavement disguised as rescue.”

“Exactly. He showed me what it looks like—an enslaved human woman, magically compelled, no will left in her eyes. That is what he wants to do to Ash.” The Spear flares again at the memory, ancient power recognizing the absolute wrongness of what I witnessed.

“And the only way to save her is to expose everything we have been hiding.”

Finnian stares at me for a long moment, processing the magnitude of what I’m suggesting. Then he deliberately pushes the interrogation equipment aside, amber eyes hardening with resolve I’ve never seen before.

“Then we expose everything.”

“You understand what that means? Treason charges. Exile. Losing everything we have built our identities around?” I study his face, looking for any hesitation. “Your position, your research, your standing in the Seelie Court—all of it gone.”

“I understand that I tortured a man to protect her, that caution becomes meaningless when someone you love faces enslavement, that some choices reshape your soul whether you make them or not,” he says with quiet determination that carries more weight than any royal decree.

His amber eyes burn with newfound resolve.

“I understand that we can either act with courage or live with the knowledge that we chose comfort over her freedom.”

His hands mirror my shadow-stained ones, and understanding passes between us without words.

“You have changed,” I observe.

“We all have. The question is whether we change together or let fear separate us when she needs us most.”

He pulls out maps and texts, the scholar in him already strategizing despite the emotional upheaval. “Show me everything. Father’s plan, the life debt mechanics, the trial structure. If we are doing this, we do it right.”

“Finnian—”

“No.” His voice carries newfound authority that makes me take notice.

“I spent hours listening to that bastard scream about how they have been conditioning her, shaping her, turning her into something that serves their purposes instead of her own nature. I will not let your father complete that process through magical binding.”

I spread shadow constructs across the table—floor plans, magical theory, political implications laid out with tactical precision. “The trial requires all four treasures to respond. Amarantha controls the Stone of Fál, corrupted to reject Wild Court authority. Even if we reveal ours...”

“Then we corrupt hers right back.” His smile turns sharp. “I know more about treasure magic than anyone alive. If she has poisoned the Stone, I can cleanse it.”

“That is theoretical at best?—”

“So is love.” He meets my gaze with absolute conviction that cuts through every doubt. “So is choosing someone over everything you thought defined you. So is believing that what we feel for her is worth reshaping the political landscape of three courts.”

The words settle into my bones like truth I’ve been avoiding, the Spear’s heat finally stabilizing into steady warmth—ancient power recognizing righteousness when it finally sees it.

“This will destroy us,” I warn, though I’m already committed to the path.

“Professionally, politically, personally. Everything we have worked for, everything we have built.”

“Good.” His voice carries steel I’ve never heard before. “Because what we have worked for clearly is not worth having if it requires sacrificing her to keep it.”

Lightning illuminates the gathering storm as shadows and golden light swirl together around us—Unseelie and Seelie magic finding harmony in shared purpose.

“Orion needs to know,” Finnian says finally.

“Orion is going to want to burn everything down the moment he hears about the debt.”

“Perhaps that is precisely what this situation calls for, what we should have recognized from the beginning.” Finnian begins gathering texts and magical implements with efficient purpose. “Perhaps careful scholarship and political maneuvering are not enough anymore.”

“And perhaps,” I say, shadows already reaching toward the grove where she sleeps safely in Orion’s protection, “we have been approaching this the wrong way. Trying to protect her within existing systems instead of changing the systems themselves.”

Finnian looks up from his preparations, amber eyes holding mine with shared understanding that needs no words. “Partners?”

“Partners.” When I clasp his shoulder, frost and golden light spiral together where our hands meet. The Spear pulses with warm approval—ancient power recognizing the righteousness of our cause. “Whatever it costs.”

“Whatever it costs,” he agrees, then adds with a scholar’s precision applied to emotional truth: “She is worth it.”

“She is worth everything.”

Outside the archive windows, storm clouds gather with unnatural speed—two courts’ worth of magical fury barely contained by ancient academy wards. In two days, we’ll either save the woman we love or destroy ourselves trying.

But we’ll do it together.

And somehow, that makes the impossible choice feel almost... possible.

The Spear’s steady warmth reminds me that some powers transcend political convenience, that justice exists beyond the calculated cruelties of kings who mistake control for strength.

Tomorrow, we begin our preparations.

In two days, we make our stand.

Against a king who turns salvation into slavery, and love into chains.