FAELAN'S POV
I’d already suspected the truth—an ugly, half-formed thread pulling tight at the back of my mind. But I needed to hear it from the young queen herself. Needed the words spoken aloud. Needed, perhaps foolishly, the chance to be wrong.
So I leaned back, met her gaze, and waited.
Queen Estelle didn’t waver. “Dagnar wanted the relics,” she said quietly. “The ones you and the other fae kings entrusted to us.”
The chamber seemed to shrink around me, the air turning heavy—as if the Drift itself had coiled around my lungs again. Behind me, Nyelle leaned toward her brother, giving Niles’ arm a steadying squeeze.
The three relics.
Separate, they were harmless—mute metal and crystal, no more dangerous than trinkets gathering dust in a forgotten drawer.
But together… gods, togeth
