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Chapter 33 – The Winterblood Legacy
The parchment trembled in Elira's hands, though not from the cold.
The words scrawled across it kept echoing inside her head like some curse written in an old tongue she could barely grasp:
"For the girl born of Wynne and the ashes of the last Winterblood."
Her breath came shallow.
It didn't make sense.
It couldn't make sense.
The last Winterblood was supposed to have died in the last purge. That bloodline had been hunted to extinction nearly two decades ago—wiped from every scroll, burned from every sigil, buried in silence. They were legends now. Or nightmares.
But Kairo stood still, watching her. Not denying it. Not questioning it.
Confirming it.
"Say something," she whispered, voice cracking beneath the weight of everything unraveling inside her.
Kairo didn't move for a long moment. Then, slowly, he took the letter from her hands and folded it in two.
"You weren't supposed to find out like this," he said. "Not until I was sure you were safe."
Her voice was hoarse. "You knew."
"I suspected. But now… there's no doubt."
He crossed the room to the hearth and tossed the folded parchment into the flames. Orange tongues of fire devoured it quickly, turning revelation into ash.
But Elira's mind couldn't burn the memory away so easily.
"I don't even know what that means," she said numbly. "What am I, Kairo?"
He looked at her, and in his eyes—no pity. No fear.
Only reverence. And something darker.
"Not what," he said. "Who."
"You are Elira Wynne. Born under a sky painted in blood and ice. Daughter of House Wynne through your mother. But your father… he was a man born with magic buried in his veins. The kind of power that makes kings fear their own thrones."
She staggered backward, hitting the wall behind her. "No. That can't be—my father died in the fires. He was no one."
"No," Kairo said gently. "He was the last descendant of the Winterblood line. And he hid in the ashes of exile. The purging of his house was brutal, but he survived long enough to fall in love. To give you a name and a future."
Elira's knees buckled, but Kairo was there in an instant—catching her, steadying her, holding her like the ground beneath them wasn't cracking.
"So what does that make me?" she asked. "A threat? A target? A weapon?"
He cupped her face, firm but soft. "It makes you the last heir of a forgotten dynasty. And it means they won't stop hunting you now."
A knock sounded at the door. This time urgent. Then a voice—Celeste.
"Let me in."
Kairo opened the door and stepped aside.
Celeste Raines entered, her eyes already locked on Elira—not with jealousy, but with a cold, calculating dread.
"You saw it," she said. "The message."
Elira nodded mutely.
Celeste walked to the window and pushed it open slightly. Snow drifted in, dusting the sill.
"There are legends," she said, "whispers of what the Winterbloods once were. They were not just rulers—they were balancers. Their veins ran cold but their hearts controlled the weather, the tides, the hidden veins of the world. Some say they could calm storms with their grief. Or destroy armies with their fury."
She turned to Elira.
"If what Kairo says is true… then your blood may be dormant—but not gone."
Elira shook her head. "I've never felt magic. I've never even seen it."
Celeste tilted her head. "Haven't you?"
Kairo watched her carefully.
"Elira," he said softly, "what happened the night of the bridge attack… when you were surrounded by the enemy. Do you remember what you felt?"
Elira blinked, trying to recall it clearly. That night had been chaos. Screams. Fire. Blood. But then…
"Yes," she murmured. "I remember the moment everything went quiet. And the air changed. It was like… it froze. Like time itself stopped breathing."
Kairo nodded.
"Varek and I found you surrounded by corpses—and none of them touched you. Not a scratch. And it wasn't the guards who saved you. It was something else."
Celeste's voice dropped to a whisper. "The Accord wasn't paid to kill you for politics, Elira. They were hired to prevent your awakening."
Silence followed. Thick. Crushing.
Elira pressed her palm to her chest, trying to still the chaos rising within.
Kairo stepped forward. "This is no longer a war between houses. This is something deeper. Ancient."
Celeste's eyes narrowed. "Then you need to decide, Kairo—what she is to you. Because if she falls into the wrong hands, the world will not survive what she becomes."
Elira looked up. "What if I don't want this?"
"You don't get to choose your blood," Celeste said. "Only what you do with it."
Kairo turned to Elira, his voice steady despite the war brewing behind it. "You have one choice now. Stay hidden. Or rise."
Elira didn't answer immediately. She looked at the fire. The ash. The world that had tried to erase her long before she knew she existed.
Then she spoke.
"I won't run anymore."
Kairo nodded.
Celeste smirked. "Then we begin her training."
Kairo arched a brow. "We?"
Celeste crossed her arms. "Don't look at me like that. You want her alive. I want her trained. And no one teaches survival like someone who was never supposed to survive."
For the first time since the attack, Elira smiled—just faintly. Tired. Hollow. But real.
Because for the first time, she wasn't walking blind.
She was walking into the fire.
And she would burn before she ever broke.
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End of Chapter 33