Page 56 of FoolSilver
She wore her glamour, but I could see through it. Half-Fae, carrying the blood so cleanly it read as pure. She sat well beside Aelindor, both of them at home in a room full of power the wayyou were only at home in places you’d occupied for centuries. Something tight and unwelcome settled in my chest. I was twenty years old and had spent nearly all my life in a mine shaft. I had no business being in their league, and the part of me that was most honest about things knew it.
I looked away from them both.
“The balance of power just broke,” Nikolai said, his rich, cultured voice cutting clean through the undercurrent of the room. “Controlling a Stormglass vein used to mean controlling the power supply. Raiders hit caravans for it because Stormglass ran the world. That calculus is finished. Coldiron changes the equation entirely. Whoever commands this metal controls whether anyone else’s Stormglass works at all. We have the only person on this continent who can do that.” His crimson gaze found me across the room, warm and certain in a way that steadied something in me as well. “Max changes everything.”
At the opposite side of the table, a general in Virgo silver turned his gaze on me—General Theron Cassel, his pale silver eyes marking him as pureblooded Fae even before you registered the stillness in him.
“Cadet,” he said. “What’s your read?”
Every eye in the room followed.
I was the only cadet in a room full of generals, commanders, and heirs.
“Huh?” I stuttered. Then I straightened. “Well. I’m proud to report that my work is all over this continent.”
The room laughed—genuine and surprised, the tension breaking along a fault line nobody had seen coming.
I hadn’t been going for a laugh. I was never the funny one. But while I had the room’s full attention and trust, and while everyone was beginning to grasp what Coldiron meant for the power structure of the entire continent, I might as well make use of it.
Chapter 22
Max
“Ivolunteer to go to the Haven first,” I said. “Topple the Collector’s operation as a test run.”
I framed it so no one could call it a condition, but loud and clear enough for the heirs to read my true meaning: the Pallid Court could wait. My sister couldn’t.
Aelindor’s mouth curved. Caspian nodded, his promise still ringing in my ears. Nikolai looked at me with a different kind of hunger.
Around the table, the disciplined energy of the briefing cracked open. Two generals spoke at once, trading strategic objections.
“Move on.” Aelindor’s voice cut across them. “The sentient metal isn’t today’s primary focus.”
The room settled.
“Xander the Collector presents a more immediate threat than the White Witch,” Caspian said, taking over. He let it stand without elaboration—in a war room, that meant he expected everyone to already know why.
The Collector’s name hit my stomach like acid.
“Is the Collector’s interest in Cadet Max connected to Coldiron?” General Daven Ashcroft asked. One of Caspian’s senior commanders—lion shifter, wide-set jaw, dense build, gold Aries sigil on a storm-blue uniform. “The intel we just received says he’s been searching for our alchemist.”
My heart skipped an icy beat. So that was why Nikolai had come to fetch me.
The room swiveled back to me. I kept my face neutral while rage burned through my veins and fear for my sister clawed its way back up my throat.
The heirs had established my value in front of their command structure, not because they needed to justify rescuing Missy, but because the Zodiac Covenant ran as a democracy, and command had to be brought along.
“Cadet Max Morning is more than an alchemist,” Commander Lee added. “She entered the DarkVeil and came out. No one has done that before.” A beat. “The three heirs accompanied her, of course.”
Caspian cut a look at Nikolai across the table. Triumphant, the look of a man collecting on a debt. Nikolai’s expression curdled. He’d stayed at the base—standing protocol, one heir always held in reserve—and the DarkVeil hadn’t waited for him.
At the mention of the Veil, the room’s energy sharpened. Ever since the Rupture and the formation of the DarkVeil, it had fascinated and terrified in equal measure. Eighty-one years, and no one had found a framework for it until I walked in with Caspian, Aelindor, and Drakken at my back.
“The DarkVeil remains a strategic priority.” Aelindor’s voice cut through the cross-talk. “And our knowledge of its interior is still limited despite the incursion. What we observed has been logged. That analysis is not on today’s agenda.”
“Move on,” Caspian said.
Commander Lee nodded, then turned her gaze back to me.
