Thorne Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Morwenna held the empty locket in her palm. She did not step closer. Thorne stayed on his knees in the frost, letting her look. His panther waited at the tree line, black against the snow, still as the leopard beside her. He knew the truth. She had let him into her yard, but not into her trust. And dawn was coming. "You know my name now," Thorne said. "You should know the rest before the sun." She closed the locket. "Say it plain." "The shadow-court means to bind you to a noble at first light. Not me. A stranger. They arranged it without your word." He watched her face. "I came to warn you." Her eyes went hard. "Someone is breaking my wards. One each night. Working inward." She lifted her chin toward the dark wood. "Toward the center. Toward me." Thorne stood slow. The leopard tensed. He raised both hands. "The court sends the breaking. The binding needs you inside your own wards, alone and unguarded. They are clearing the path." "You expect me to believe a stranger in my frost." "No," he said. "I expect you to see for yourself." He told her of the sealed place beneath the ridge. Stone and iron, runes cut into the door, shelves of old court records inside. Every fated binding was written there. Every lie the court had signed. "Your name is in those records already," he said. "Dated for dawn. Go read it. I will not touch the door until you say." She studied him a long moment. "You could be leading me from my wards. Straight into the trap." "Then leave your guardian at the door," Thorne said. "If I lie, it takes my throat." That landed. Morwenna glanced at the leopard, then back at him. She pulled a cloak from inside the cottage and stepped into the snow. The leopard rose and walked at her side. Her wings caught the pale light, blue and violet, torn at one edge. "Show me," she said. "If the record is there, I decide what I do with it. Not you." "Agreed." They crossed the ridge as the sky grayed. The archive stood half-buried in the slope, its iron bands rusted, the carved runes worn but whole. Thorne broke the seal with a thread of shadow and stood back. Morwenna went in alone. The leopard blocked the doorway, watching Thorne. She found the shelf. She found the page. Her own name, her own binding, dated this dawn, signed by a hand she had never met. She read it twice. When she came out, her face had changed. "You told the truth," she said. Her voice stayed flat, but something behind it had shifted. "They lied to me for years." "Yes." "Then the binding happens whether I run or not." She folded the page into her cloak. "I need to know how to stop it. And I think you know who is coming next."