(POV: Elowen)
I did not faint.
Everyone expected me to.
I could see it in their faces—the way power paused, the way magic hesitated, as if waiting for me to crumple so the problem could be neatly handled. A collapsed girl was easier than a standing one. Easier to cage. Easier to erase.
But I stayed upright.
Barely.
The world felt… too much. Sound arrived late. Light fractured. I could feel everything—heat roaring at my back, shadows curling protectively around my feet, something green and steady at my side, something cold watching me like a blade deciding whether to fall.
Four forces.
Four pulls.
And at the center of them—me.
My heart slammed against my ribs as the truth settled into my bones with horrifying clarity.
They weren't arguing about what I was.
They were arguing about whether I was allowed to exist.
The hall groaned, stone splitting as ancient wards failed under the strain of rewritten magic. Dust drifted from the ceiling like ash. Somewhere far away, bells began to ring—low, panicked tones echoing through the courts.
Alarm.
I swallowed hard.
The Ember Prince—fire still crackling along his skin—stood half-turned toward me, body angled like a shield. He was breathing hard, like he'd just survived a battle he hadn't expected to walk away from.
The Shadow King stood closest.
I hadn't noticed him move.
He was simply… there. One moment distant, the next within arm's reach, shadows wrapping the broken floor between us into something solid. His silver eyes searched my face with unnerving intensity, as if he were memorizing me in case the world decided to steal me again.
"Can you stand?" he asked quietly.
I nodded. Then shook my head. Then nodded again.
"I think so," I said. My voice sounded wrong to my own ears—too loud, too thin, like it didn't belong in a room built for immortals.
The Verdant Lord approached slowly, palms open, his presence a balm against the chaos tearing through me. Wherever he stepped, the cracks in the stone sealed themselves with living green.
"You are safe," he said gently.
The Frost Regent laughed.
It was a soft sound. Polite. Terrifying.
"Nothing about this is safe," he said. "Look at her."
I flinched despite myself.
He did not look at me like the others did.
The Ember Prince looked at me like something precious.
The Verdant Lord looked at me like something alive.
The Shadow King looked at me like something long-lost and fiercely guarded.
The Frost Regent looked at me like a mistake that had learned to breathe.
"She is a convergence," he continued. "A violation of the Law. If word spreads—"
"It already has," the Shadow King said flatly.
Another tremor rolled through the hall, distant but deep. The bells rang again, louder this time.
The Frost Regent's jaw tightened.
"She cannot leave this chamber," he said. "Not until a judgment is rendered."
I laughed before I could stop myself.
It came out sharp and hysterical and entirely unbecoming of a girl who had just been labeled a world-ending threat.
"A judgment?" I said. "You dragged me here without my consent, tried to kill me, and now you want to vote on me?"
Silence slammed into the room.
The Ember Prince turned to stare at me, eyes wide and incandescent.
The Verdant Lord's lips twitched. Just barely.
The Shadow King smiled.
It was not a pleasant expression.
"You summoned her," he said to the Frost Regent, voice like a blade sliding free. "Your ritual. Your circle. Your arrogance."
"I did not intend—"
"You intended control," the Shadow King cut in. "You failed."
The Frost Regent's gaze snapped to me again, sharp and calculating. "Do you even know what you are?"
"No," I said honestly. My hands trembled, magic sparking along my fingers like nervous energy. "But I know what I'm not."
I lifted my chin.
"I am not your weapon. I am not your sacrifice. And I am not choosing one of you just to make this easier."
The words rang through the chamber, carried by power I hadn't known I possessed.
The Weaver's Mark flared faintly overhead, as if in agreement.
The Frost Regent's face went very still.
"You will choose," he said. "Or the courts will tear themselves apart trying to force the decision."
I felt it then—the strain between them, the fragile threads holding centuries of uneasy peace together. They weren't exaggerating.
This wasn't about me.
I was just the match.
The Shadow King stepped closer, his presence a dark anchor at my side.
"You do not decide her fate," he said.
The Ember Prince's fire flared brighter. "Try to take her and see what happens."
The Verdant Lord placed a hand over his heart and bowed—to me.
"My loyalty is hers," he said simply.
The Frost Regent stared at the three of them.
Then at me.
Something unreadable flickered across his face.
"So be it," he said. "If you will not choose—then neither will we."
Cold magic snapped outward, fast and precise, striking the floor between us.
The hall split open.
A rift tore through the stone, yawning wide and black, ancient containment runes blazing to life along its edges.
Prison magic.
My stomach dropped.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
"Protecting the world," he replied. "From you."
The Shadow King swore.
The Ember Prince roared.
The Verdant Lord lunged—
And the floor gave way beneath my feet.
I screamed as gravity vanished, shadows and fire and vines reaching for me all at once—but the Frost Regent's magic was faster.
The last thing I saw was the Shadow King diving after me, silver eyes burning with fury.
The last thing I heard was the sound of something ancient sealing shut.
And then—
Darkness.
Cold.
And a whisper curling through the void, ancient and hungry and unmistakably aware.
At last, it murmured.The Weaver returns.