“And while we still do not know how he is storing the Threads he is harvesting,” he continues, his gaze sweeping the tent, “or the full extent of what he plans to do with them, we do believe we understandwhy.” Pausing, Merrin places his hands into his pockets. “Cracks are forming, not just in the Innerlands, but inside the Citadel itself. And over the past decade, Serrane has grown increasingly paranoid that he will be removed. So we believe he’s draining people, dragons, to build his own army, and harvesting their Threads to forge a weapon—everything aimed at keeping himself in power.”
“Why don’t the people he’s taking try to escape or something?” A young recruit at the front asks, their voice wavering.
“One theory,” Merrin informs, “is that the pure Threads are the part that makes someone who they are—their identity, their will. By harvesting only those—splitting them and leaving the darker half behind—he takes that piece for himself. And once he holds it, he can control what’s left. Both dragons and people.”
Neeve's hand drops from her braid and digs into her thigh. Reaching over, I take it and give it a small squeeze. My dad islong gone, but maybe Neeve’s is still out there. Maybe we can find him, find Finn.
“It’s also how we believe his dragons are able to breach the Innerlands,” Merrin adds. “As their pure Threads are removed, the Veils do not detect them in the same way.”
“Let's just kill them all!” The recruit with the eye-patch stands and yells, earning him a cheer from at least half the tent. “This dark army of his—the freaks with black eyes and the dragons.”
Merrin’s mouth opens, but Talen marches forward before he can respond.
“Look around!” he orders, not bothering to hide the fury flashing across his face. “The men and women in this tent are your neighbours, your friends, family even.”
Neeve stiffens beside me. So do I. He’s not even using his Threads and the hush that falls over the crowd is deafening.
“Those ‘freaks’—the people Serrane has taken—are no different from the person you’re sitting next to. They didn’t choose this path, nor did the dragons. They are someone’s parent, someone’s child. So when it’s your hand that kills them—when you’re close enough to see it, feel it—you will rememberexactlywhat you’re taking.”
Talen fixes the One-eyed recruit with a stare I wouldn’t wish on anyone, and I can practically hear him swallow as he sinks back down onto his bench. For a few seconds, no one dares say a word as Talen scans the crowd, making sure his warning lands, before finally stepping back.
“He’s right,” a blonde girl at the front mumbles. “But we should at least kill Serrane.”
“I heard you couldn’t kill him even if you wanted to.” A voice behind her responds.
The girl whips around. “What do you mean?!”
“He’s too powerful. I heard he’s harvested so much magic that nothing wielded by a human hand can kill him now. Not even our Threads.”
Serrane can't be killed? Shit, well that doesn't sound good. I glance between Merrin and Talen but neither of their faces gives anything away as murmurs start to spread throughout the tent again.
“I heard that too,” Neeve whispers, leaning over toward me. “That he can only be killed by some old Aurelian blade, made of stone. But it was lost centuries ago...”
Stone blade?
The words snag in my mind, tugging at a half-buried memory. I’ve seen one before, I’m sure of it, but the image won’t come clear. I turn to ask more, but Merrin’s voice bellows across the tent.
“The reason we cannot justkillSerrane,” he corrects, forcing the rising uproar back down, “is because he is not acting alone. This is bigger than him, and it has been for a while. We know he has people behind him—inside this, feeding it and helping it grow.” Merrin’s gaze hardens and my fists curl. I bet Professor Strannt is one of them, the fucking Weasel’s dad. “And if we take him out now, we risk losing everything. His plans. His allies. All of it. And we do not know what it may trigger. Men like him do not build something this big without protocols in place to keep it moving.”
“So what?” The recruit at the front pushes on. “We simply wait until he uses this ‘weapon’ he’s building and wipes us all out?!”
Merrin’s posture remains calm. “Of course we are trying to stop him, but we don’t have enough information yet to act without risking everything. So right now, our priority is getting as many of your family out of the Innerlands before the Census.The borders are already tightening. Soon, they won’t open at all.”
Question after question floods my mind, each one shoving in before the last can fully form. I want to ask, to push, to force more answers out of him, but there are too many pieces, all of them tripping over each other too fast for me to sort through.
So I grab the first one before it can slip away.
“And after,” I ask. “If we even manage to take Serrane down, the Citadel. Then what?”
This time, it’s Lucien who steps forward.
“When the Citadel falls…” He crosses his arms, confidence bleeding from every line of him. “Then we’ll need new leadership. And I know many of you here—like me—believe it’s time Aurelia rose again.” His focus shifts to Talen, who’s leaning at the back of the tent, turning his talisman over and over between his fingers. Talen raises a brow at him but keeps his expression neutral, almost bored as Lucien turns back to us. “For the old bloodline to step up and reclaim what’s truly theirs.”
As he punctuates the last word, the shift is immediate. Agreement sparks first, a few voices rising clear and certain—then others crash into them, louder, angrier, until the whole tent has turned in on itself, the divide ripping it wide open. Even Neeve beside me joins in.
It’s so loud I can’t even hear myself think—then, all at once, it dies. Simply cuts out clean. People around me are still yelling, still shouting, but I can’t hear any of it.
My brows knit as I scan the crowd but then my gaze lands on Talen. His hand is slightly raised, fist closed around his talisman and a faint smile tugs at his mouth.
