VEX POV
The vampire’s scream cut through the air as I pressed my claws against her forehead. Her mories poured into my mind like water through a broken dam.
"Please," she begged, tears running down her face. "I don’t know anything important. I’m just a foot soldier."
"Everyone knows sothing," I said softly, keeping my voice calm even as I dug deeper into her thoughts. "You just don’t realize it yet."
My na is Vex, and I’m not like the other Shadow Lords. While they use brute force and terror, I prefer a more elegant thod. I steal mories. It’s better. More useful. And if I’m being honest, I’m very good at it.
The vampire tried to fight , but it was useless. Her mind opened like a book, and I read every page.
"Interesting," I muttered as I saw her recent mories. "So Queen Seraphina has been eting with the werewolf Alpha. And they’re going to attack our eastern stronghold."
"No," the vampire whispered. "I wasn’t supposed to rember that."
"But you did," I said, pulling my hands away from her head. "And now I know."
The vampire fell, unconscious but alive. I always tried to keep my victims alive. Dead people can’t have their mories stolen again later.
I walked deeper into our prison cave, where we kept the enemies we’d taken during recent battles. Three werewolves, two more vampires, and one young fae fighter. All of them had been fighting against us just hours ago. Now they were chained to the wall, waiting for to visit them.
"Good evening," I called out happily. "Who wants to go first?"
They all shrank back from . Word had already spread about what I could do. Fear is almost as important as mories.
"You," I pointed to one of the beasts, a young man with scared eyes. "You were fighting near Kael earlier. What did you hear him planning?"
"I’m not telling you anything," he said, trying to sound brave.
I walked over to him slowly. "You know, I used to feel bad about this. Taking mories from people, learning their secrets. It felt like stealing."
I put my hand on his forehead. "But then I realized sothing. mories aren’t really yours, are they? They’re just electrical patterns in your brain. And if I can read those patterns..."
The werewolf’s eyes went wide as I started pulling his thoughts out. I saw through his eyes as Kael gave orders to the supernatural allies. I felt his fear when the dragons took flight. I experienced his surprise when Aria stepped out of that magical bubble.
"Oh, this is very interesting," I said, pulling back. "Aria isn’t just an Earth Guardian, is she?"
The werewolf was breathing hard, looking dizzy. "What... what did you take?"
"Everything about the last few hours," I said. "Don’t worry, you’ll rember again soday. Maybe."
I moved to the next prisoner, a vampire who had been caught near the dical tent. "And you, my dear, were helping with the injured. You must have overheard the doctors talking."
"Stay away from ," she hissed, showing her fangs.
"Such spirit," I laughed. "I do enjoy a challenge."
This vampire fought harder than the others. Her mind had strong walls built around her most important mories. But I’d been doing this for ages. I knew how to break any wall.
When I was finished, I had learned sothing that made smile. "So Lucien is a Life Guardian. And he’s nearly drained of power. How... vulnerable."
The vampire had passed out from the pressure. I moved on to the fae warrior.
"Please," he said before I even touched him. "I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just don’t take my mories of my family."
I paused. The fae had always interested . Their thoughts were different from werewolves and vampires. More... lively.
"What’s your na?" I asked.
"Finn," he said softly.
"Well, Finn, I’m going to be honest with you. I’m going to take your mories whether you participate or not. But if you tell what I want to know first, I might let you keep the good ones."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything about the Fae King’s magic," I said. "How it works. What its limits are. How to break it."
Finn’s face went pale. "I can’t tell you that. It would doom my entire people."
"And keeping it secret will doom you," I pointed out. "Choose."
For a mont, I thought he might actually tell . But then he shook his head. "I won’t betray my king."
"Admirable," I said, grabbing for his head. "Stupid, but admirable."
Fae mories were like looking at rainbow-colored glass. Beautiful but hard to understand. I had to be careful not to get lost in them.
But what I found made gasp.
"Impossible," I whispered.
I saw King Oberyn as a child, learning magic from his mother. But she wasn’t just any fae. She was sothing else. Sothing that shouldn’t exist.
I saw the truth about the Ancient Fae Magic. It wasn’t just powerful—it was living. It had its own thoughts, its own plans. And it had been directing events for thousands of years.
I saw why Aria was really important. Not just because she was an Earth Guardian, but because she was the key to sothing much bigger. Sothing that could change the balance between light and shade forever.
"No, no, no," I muttered, pulling more images out of Finn’s mind. "This can’t be right."
But it was. I saw the final piece of the puzzle that no one else knew. The real reason why the Shadow Lords had been hunting Earth Guardians and Life Guardians for so long.
We weren’t trying to kill them.
We were trying to save them.
From sothing much worse than us.
I stumbled backward, my head spinning from what I’d learned. All this ti, all these ages, we’d been fighting the wrong enemy.
"Guard!" I called out desperately. "I need to speak to the Prisoner imdiately!"
But when the guard ca running, he brought news that made my blood freeze.
"Lord Vex," he said, out of breath. "The Prisoner is gone. Soone freed it from its bonds."
"What? Who?"
"We don’t know. But whoever it was knew exactly how to break the old seals. They had inside knowledge."
I felt the stolen mories swirling in my head, showing terrible facts I wished I’d never learned.
"When did this happen?" I asked.
"Just now. And Lord Vex... it left a ssage for you."
He gave a piece of paper with words written in blood:
"Dear mory Thief. Thank you for gathering all that useful knowledge. I’ll be taking those mories from you now. The real war is about to begin. - Your True Master"
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