The golden thread fades at the base of a narrow arch.
There's no lock. No wards. No runes.
Just a doorframe carved into stone, smooth and waiting.
I step through.
The chamber is circular, walls arched high above, the air still but not stale.
It feels…..held.
Twelve symbols are carved along the perimeter—-each etched into dark stone with lines of faintly glowing magic.
Some I recognize as old Court sigils. Seelie and UnSeelie. Bloodline marks. Trial seals. Others mean nothing to me.
At first.
I step into the center.
The door vanishes behind me.
One by one, the sigils on the wall begin to dim.
Softly.
Without sound.
As if they're bowing out.
Until only one remains.
Not on the wall—--
But beneath my feet.
The floor glows, slow and rising, as a thirteenth sigil spirals to life.
Not Court.
Not family.
Not anything I've seen before.
And yet I know it's mine.
The pendant around my neck hums in time with the light, knot burning—-just acknowledging.
Then I hear it.
"You were never meant to belong to the ones who built the Court. You were meant to outlast it."
I don't move.
I don't speak.
Because for the first time since I arrived in Nox.
I don't feel claimed.
I feel chosen.
The thirteenth sigil fades beneath my feet, but the chamber doesn't darken.
It deepens.
The stone floor shifts, unfolding in slow, concentric rings as a pedestal rises from the center, it's surface smooth and glowing—-veined with gold, pulsing like a living thing.
I step toward it without thinking.
When I lay my hand against it, it hums—--not magic, not warmth. Recognition.
The light flares, and suddenly I'm no longer standing in stone.
I'm in a memory.
But it isn't mine.
**********
My mother stands in the middle of a great hall I've never seen. Her hair is pulled back, face calm, voice steady—--the exact calm someone learns to wear when everything is falling apart.
"I will not hand over my child."
Freyr is there.
Younger. Colder.
Silent.
A Seelie official speaks sharply. "She carries a bloodline they fear. If you keep her, she will become their excuse."
"She will become herself," my mother answers. "Not yours. Not theirs."
The memory shifts.
My father stands with her. He doesn't speak. Bt he holds her hand.
And that stays more than enough.
The vision ends before the verdict is spoken.
But I don't need to hear it.
I know how it ends.
**********
The light fades from the pedestal.
But the floor continues to shift—--and now, something rises from the platform.
Three sigils hover in the air:
Seelie
UnSeelie
Mine
A question pulses above them in old magic.
"Which truth will you carry forward?"
Not a choice between sides.
A choice between how I want the word to see me.
To shape me.
I lift my hand toward the center symbol—-my mark—-but just as my fingers brush the light, something ripples through the chamber.
A shift.
A pulse of watching.
Someone else is here.
Not physically.
But they're watching.
The pedestal flares again.
The choice is mine.
But I won't be the only one who knows what I pick.
*********
Nova's POV
The pool ripples without being touched.
No incantation. No gesture.
Just presence.
I kneel at the edge of the water, wings folded back in stillness, hands resting lightly on my knees.
The others don't know I'm here.
They wouldn't approve if they did.
But I'm not here on their behalf.
I'm here for me.
The girl. Sarah.
In the pool's reflection, the chamber flickers—-stone and gold, the thirteenth sigil glowing beneath the girl's feet.
I watch as the choice appears: three sigils, suspended in light.
Seelie
UnSeelie
Hers.
Sarah doesn't hesitate.
She lifts her hand to the center.
I hold my breath as the room around the girl shifts. The sigil flares brighter than the others—-not louder. Not stronger. Just…..right.
I exhale slowly.
"You're not who we thought you were," I whisper.
The surface of the pool trembles slightly in response.
I don't flinch.
"But you might be exactly who we need."
I lean forward, eyes narrowing slightly.
"Let's just hope they don't break you before you realize just who and what you are."
The water clears.
The vision fades.
I rise—-silent, wings unfolding behind me as I glide silently through the inner halls of the archives—--the part of the Court even most Seelie highborn have never seen.
I enter the chamber without being stopped.
No one watches me. No one ever does.
A single crystal rests in my palm—-etched with the same mark Sarah claimed for herself. Not Seelie. Not UnSeelie.
Her own.
I set the crystal on the center pedestal. A soft voice drifting from the shadowed arch behind me.
"Does she know what she's chosen?"
I don't turn.
"No," I say. "But she will."
I take a scroll from my robes, already inked and sealed in gold wax.
I place it beside the crystal.
The title is simple. Unmistakeable.
The Balance Was Broken The Day Velarde Fell.
The voice doesn't respond. It doesn't have to.
I turn, wings casting fractured light across the walls as I step out of the chamber.
I don't look back. But as the door seals behind me, the lights dim one by one.
The record has been made.
And the questions no one dared ask are now quietly waiting to be answered.
*********
The chamber seals itself again.
I remain in shadow, where I belong.
Nova's footsteps fade behind layers of stone and silence.
The scroll sits untouched—--new wax still cooling at the seal. Its title burns brighter than the candlelight around it.
"The Balance Was Broken The Day Velarde Fell."
It's not the first scroll I've read that invoked their names. But it is the first time someone put it in writing.
I rise.
Not with urgency. Not with fear.
With recognition.
I approach the pedestal, fingers trailing over the edges of the crystal Nova left beside it—---etched with a sigil that does not belong to either Court.
Hers. The girls.
Not Elara. Not Tristian.
Their legacy.
Their question mark.
I do not open the scroll. Not yet.
It's meaning is clear.
Nova suspects.
She doesn't know what really happened. She doesn't know what was promised in exchange for silence.
But she suspects.
And that...is enough=.
The walls of the archive hum faintly as I return to my seat in the dark.
I do not light a flame. I do not summon a name.
I only whisper, to no one but the stone:
"She is not ready. But Lumindellar is."