Jae's pulse quickened, the silence of the library suddenly pressing down on him as the weight of what he had read settled over his chest. His heart skipped, not from surprise alone but from the stark clarity that came with connecting the fragments in front of him.
This was no coincidence. The glowing runes in the cave, the attacks on the academy, the ambushes that had dogged his steps, none of it was random violence or scattered misfortune. It was all woven together, threads in a much larger design.
The Shadow Monarch's cult. The realization sat in his stomach like a stone. The words on the page seemed to pulse, every line suddenly charged with more meaning than the dry parchment should have been able to hold.
For weeks now, he had suspected something more lay beneath the surface of their troubles, but the confirmation left him both vindicated and unsettled. He read on, forcing his eyes to focus despite the slight trembling in his hands.
