Chapter One Hundred & Twenty Seven
Chapter One Hundred & Twenty Seven
Nora's P.O.V
We came to a gate.
Massive didn’t even cover it—stone and light woven together into something that felt alive, rising high enough it almost disappeared into that shifting sky. It wasn’t just a castle. It was… a seat of power. Old. Waiting.
Two guards stood at either side.
The second they saw Rael, they straightened instantly.
“Sir,” one said, both of them bowing their heads.
Then their eyes shifted to me.
And everything changed.
“Is that—” one of them whispered.
Rael didn’t slow.
He just nodded.
That was all it took.
They dropped to one knee.
“My queen.”
I choked on my own breath.
“What—”
Rael laughed beside me, actually laughed, like this was normal.
“Welcome home, Nora.”
The gates opened.
Slow.
Heavy.
Final.
And he walked in like he expected me to follow.
I didn’t move.
Not at first.
“Oh, hell no,” I muttered, shaking my head as I forced my legs to work again, catching up to him. “Rael, you don’t just spring that on me—queen? What—”
He stopped.
Turned.
And the look he gave me wasn’t amused anymore.
It was… certain.
“I thought the first Iriath was here,” I said, pushing forward, needing answers now. “You said this place—”
“No,” he cut in, calm but absolute. “Nora… she’s long gone.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“Her memory is here,” he said. “Her power. Her knowledge. What she was—what she built.”
A beat.
“She’s been waiting,” he added, his gaze locking onto mine, “to teach you.”
Something in my chest shifted.
Heavy.
“You are the Iriath now.”
Silence hit hard.
I stared at him.
Then around us.
At the gates. The guards. The place that felt like it had been expecting me.
“So you’ve all just been here?” I asked slowly. “Waiting for me?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?” I pushed.
He didn’t answer that right away.
Which told me everything.
My eyes narrowed slightly.
“How old are you?” I asked. “Because I’m guessing in this… place—this realm—you’re not human.”
That earned the faintest shift in his expression.
Not defensive.
Just… measured.
“No,” he said. “We’re not.”
“Then what are you?”
He stepped closer—not threatening, not closing space to dominate—but enough that I couldn’t ignore him.
“We are what remains,” he said. “Of those who refused to disappear when the world changed.”
That wasn’t a real answer.
“You’re dancing around it,” I said.
“I’m simplifying it,” he replied.
I crossed my arms.
“Try harder.”
That almost pulled a smile out of him again.
Almost.
“We are bound to this place,” he said. “To the power that created it. Sustained by it.”
My eyes flicked around again.
“The Iriath.”
“Yes.”
That landed.
“And me?” I asked.
His gaze didn’t waver.
“You’re not bound to it,” he said.
A beat.
“You are it.”
Silence.
I exhaled slowly, looking past him at the castle ahead, at the place that now felt less like something I’d walked into—
And more like something I’d been pulled toward my entire life.
“…You could’ve started with that,” I muttered.
Rael stepped back slightly, giving me space—but not distance.
“Would you have believed me?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
Because no—
I wouldn’t have.
“Wait—”
The realization hit all at once, sharp enough to steal the air from my lungs.
I turned to him, eyes wide.
“You’re bound to me… aren’t you?”
My gaze snapped past him—to the guards, to the people beyond the gates, to the entire place that felt like it had been breathing me in since I arrived.
“These people… they’re all bound to me.”
It wasn’t a question.
It was worse.
It was truth.
“Oh my god—” I dragged a hand through my hair, pacing a step back, the weight of it crashing in. “This is too much.”
My chest tightened.
“I have a home,” I said, my voice sharper now, grounding myself in something real. “Back there. In my world. My men. My family.”
Leo.
Killian.
Nick.
Amelia.
“They can’t come here,” I continued, turning back to him, frustration building now. “And you’re telling me I have to lead this—all of this—and stay here?”
The space around us seemed to still, like even the place itself was listening.
“I can’t be in two places at once.”
Rael didn’t interrupt.
Didn’t rush to answer.
He just watched me, letting it hit—letting me feel all of it instead of cutting it off.
Then he stepped closer, calm, grounded in a way that didn’t waver.
“You’re not choosing one or the other,” he said.
I let out a short, disbelieving breath. “It sounds exactly like that.”
“It isn’t,” he replied.
My eyes narrowed slightly. “Then explain it better.”
He tilted his head just slightly, like he’d expected that.
“You’re not meant to stay here,” he said.
That made me pause.
“What?”
“This place doesn’t take you from your world,” he continued. “It connects to it.”
I stilled.
“You won’t live here,” he added. “Not the way you’re thinking.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?” I asked.
His gaze didn’t leave mine.
“Learn,” he said. “Train. Understand what you are without the limits of your world holding you back.”
A beat.
“Then you go back.”
That hit differently.
“And them?” I asked, glancing around. “These people?”
“They don’t need you every second,” he said. “They’ve existed without you for centuries. They need your direction. Your decisions. Not your constant presence.”
I let that settle.
It didn’t fix everything.
But it shifted it.
“So I’m supposed to just… split my life in half?” I asked.
“You’re supposed to step into both of them,” he corrected.
I exhaled slowly, the tension not gone—but not suffocating anymore either.
“And you?” I asked, looking back at him. “Where do you fit in that?”
A faint pause.
Then—
“I guide you here,” he said.
Of course he did.
I glanced back toward the gates, toward the castle, toward the people who had just dropped to their knees like I belonged to them.
Then back to him.
“This is insane.”
“Yes,” he said.
I let out a breath, shaking my head slightly.
“…I need a minute.”
“You have one,” he said.
That almost made me laugh.
Almost.
Because even with everything spinning—
One thing was clear.
This wasn’t taking me away from them.
It was making me something I had to bring back to them.
Rael watched me for a moment, like he was measuring how much I’d actually absorbed—how much I was holding together.
“Are you ready to see your home away from home, my queen?” he asked.
I shot him a look immediately.
“Don’t,” I said.
His brow lifted slightly.
“Not that,” I added, shaking my head once. “Not you.”
A beat.
“It’s Nora.”
Something shifted in his expression—not offense, not resistance.
Recognition.
“Very well,” he said. “Nora.”
That sat better.
I exhaled slowly, glancing past him toward the gates, toward the place that apparently belonged to me whether I was ready or not.
“Home away from home,” I muttered under my breath. “Still sounds insane.”
“It will stop feeling that way,” he said.
“Doubt it.”
That almost pulled a smirk from him.
He turned then, stepping forward, motioning for me to follow.