CHAPTER 49: UNRAVEL

At first, the chamber was silent.

The two elves lay sprawled like statues toppled from a temple, their eyes glazed and wide, their bodies unnervingly still.

Many in the court thought them dead.

And then, one shuddered.

A rasp of air tore from his throat, harsh, shallow.

The other followed, a twitch racing across his cheek as though each nerve had only just remembered how to function.

Their limbs jerked erratically before settling into spasms, and with horror the court realized: they were alive.

Alive, but ruined.

The Elves dragged themselves onto their elbows, their faces pale and clammy, their fine robes stained with sweat.

Their eyes darted about the hall, not in defiance, not even in anger, but with the dull panic of animals that had been cornered too many times.

And in those eyes there was no pride left.

Only the terror of men who had glimpsed a power they were never meant to comprehend.

They remembered everything. The sensation of their very essence tearing and knitting under Caedrion’s command.

Bones that had rattled without moving.

Veins that burned as though filled with molten brass.

Skin prickling with a thousand phantom knives.

Not injury, not mutilation... exposure.

As if their entire beings had been turned inside out and laid bare before him.

Now they breathed again, but each gasp was tinged with sobs.

Their hands shook violently as they tried to rise, but their bodies betrayed them, collapsing again onto the polished floor.

The courtiers muttered, some recoiling in disgust, others in awe.

Malveris grimaced, his staff tapping once on the stone to steady himself.

Sylene folded her arms tight, unwilling to look too long.

Only Aelindria held her ground at Caedrion’s side, her expression steady, her hand light on his shoulder.

To the others, he looked like a monster. To her, she could feel the truth in his thoughts, he was no sadist, no mad tyrant.

He was doing only what was necessary to protect her, to protect them all.

The elves knew what this meant.

If Caedrion allowed them to live, their return home would be a death sentence of another kind.

Their people would see their condition, hear their confessions, and brand them as failures, as weaklings who not only failed in their mission but betrayed their secrets under torture.

And if he did not allow them to live? Perhaps that would be kinder.

They looked up at him, lips trembling but no words spilling forth, as though speech itself had been burned out of them.

Their eyes begged, though whether for mercy, for release, or for death, not even they knew.

Caedrion sat on his throne, resting his chin on the top of his knuckles. A lamentable expression on his face.

His voice carried easily across the hall, cold but composed:

"What? Don’t look at me like that... You think I wanted this? I did warn you what would happen if you refused to be honest with me from the start. But you both chose to harbor your lies, your deceit, your ill intentions towards me and my family. And now... Now look at you.... Pitiful."

The elves flinched at the sound.

"As unfortunate as this was... now I know. The elves see me as a threat. They probe. They test. They underestimate. But they will not forget what I have shown them here today. And because of that..."

He leaned forward in his chair, shifting his hands so that they gripped his armrests.

"Now there will be war... eventually, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. Hell, maybe not a decade from now. But you’ve shown your intentions, and I know I can’t trust anything your kind says. And if there can be no trust between us, well... you understand the rest, right? Be gone!"

His words echoed through the hall, heavy as a prophecy.

Some recoiled, others whispered, but a few, a dangerous few, could not hide the gleam in their eyes.

Fear, yes. But also awe. The kind of awe that bred loyalty. For all their terror, they had seen power, and power was intoxicating.

The spies dragged themselves to their feet and shuffled from the Great Hall.

Shivering, not because they were cold, but because their bodies still remembered its torment.

And in that silence, one truth settled across Dawnhaven’s court:

Caedrion had not spared them out of mercy. He had spared them because broken men speak louder than corpses.

And in doing so, he proved he was no longer a lord among men.

He was something more, something the world had not seen since the Eidolons walked it.

---

The two Elves had barely staggered out of Caedrion’s hall when the world tore itself inside out.

No carriage. No sea crossing. No long march home.

One blink of an eye, they were trembling in Dawnhaven. The next, they were coughing seawater onto the polished marble of the High Court of Larethian.

Gasps rippled through the chamber. Elven Magi-priests, draped in silver-threaded vestments, leapt to their feet.

Runes inlaid into the white columns of the hall flared, reacting as if the palace itself had just been breached.

The two spies collapsed before the dais of the Verdant Synod.

Their fine robes were soaked, their hair clung in wet strands to pale, sweat-streaked faces.

Their eyes were wide and bloodshot, eyes that had seen something which should not exist.

High Magister Elorath, his staff clutched so tightly that his knuckles whitened, leaned forward.

His voice carried sharply and accusing, though beneath it trembled unease.

"What sorcery is this? You were dispatched as merchants to Dawnhaven. Explain yourselves. How did you return in such a state, and through what gate?"

One of the elves shuddered, his lips trembling. His words came out like broken glass.

"There... there was no gate... He sent us. He used their barrier, the old one... It must be the work of the Eidolons. He bent it to his will and cast us here like chaff on the wind..."

The priests exchanged looks, disbelief colliding with dawning horror. No mortal had ever controlled the ancient Eidolon forges and barriers.

Not since the Exodus. And yet the evidence lay crumpled at their feet, twitching and gasping.

Another Magister narrowed her eyes, raised her hand to silence the hall.

"You mean to tell us... this human has awakened a relic of the Architect? That he not only commands it, but wields it to cross the world in an instant?"

The second spy gave a ragged sob. His voice cracked as though the memory itself shredded his throat.

"He saw us. He unmade us. Not our bodies... our selves. Every vein, every bone, every thought. He peeled us open, examined us, and then... rebuilt us, piece by piece, until we begged for death. And then, when he was done, he cast us back to you. Alive. Alive so we could tell you."

A hush fell. Not even the youngest acolyte dared breathe.

The spies shook where they knelt, trembling not from cold but from memory. They did not look like Magi. They looked like beggars dragged from the gutter.

Finally, a third Magister found his voice again, though it quavered.

"This... Caedrion Ferrondel. He is no longer merely a man. He toys with powers that should have died with the Eidolons. Whether by chance, discovery, or destiny, he has become something else."

And though no one dared speak it aloud, the thought curdled in the minds of all who stood in that chamber:

If such power belonged to a human, how long before it turned upon the Elves themselves?