Feyre Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

The name held true. Feyre had read it with her eyes alone and lived. But the book told her nothing more. It named the power under her skin, yet it never said what that power would ask of her once it woke. She had the word. She did not have the price. Before she spoke the curse-name aloud, she wanted one more voice. Lucien knew a place. The Ebon Archive rose in gray stone and burning glass, older than any library she had entered, and it kept records the old library did not. Inside, a young librarian met them between the tall shelves. She wore the same robes as Miriam Ashwood, with red braids and sharp green eyes. Lucien called her Anny Waverlee. She did not waste greetings. "You carry sealed power," she said, looking at Feyre's arms. "And you came with him." Her glance moved to Lucien and held. "That matters more than you think." Feyre set the book on a glass-topped desk. Beside it lay another ancient text under glass, its symbols glowing faint blue and violet. Anny tapped the case. "Soulmate bonds. I keep seventeen on record. I know every shape they take." She looked back at Feyre. "Your seal is not only a lock on power. It is one half of a bond." "A bond," Feyre said. "With who?" "With whoever holds the other half." Anny opened her glowing book. She pointed to two linked marks. "The power your ancestors sealed was never meant to wake alone. It wakes through a bond. Speak the name without the other half present, and the power has nothing to anchor to. It takes what it can reach instead. Your memory. Your body. Your life." Feyre's stomach turned cold. "The curse already takes those things." "Then the curse is the power eating you from inside, starved of its other half." Anny closed the case. "That is what killed the woman before you. Not only a bad stroke. She spoke it with no bond to catch it." Near the shelves stood a carved stone couple, two high fae with hands joined around a single staff. Anny nodded at it. "The old makers knew. Power like yours was built for two." Feyre looked at Lucien. He had gone very still. "His grandmother sent him to me," she said slowly. "She called him my soulmate." "Then test it," Anny said. "Before you speak the name. A bond can be confirmed. A broken one cannot be forced." She studied them both. "But I will tell you plainly. If he is not the other half, speaking the name will kill you faster than silence ever would." Feyre closed the book. She had come for the price. Now she knew it. The name alone was not enough. She needed the bond, and she needed to know if the man beside her truly held it. "Then we confirm it," she said. "Before I say a word."