"Maria! Are you dead up there?"
The voice yanked her from fire and glass.
One heartbeat ago, she had been standing in a tower of mirrors endless, cracking flames licking at her reflection.
A whisper had coiled through the shards, sharp and sweet as a blade:
"Aisyle."
Not her name. But close.
Then the stars shattered like ice, and she woke choking on her breath.
Her ceiling loomed blank above her, sunlight pooling through the shutters. Chickens bickered outside. Serene was clanging pots and cursing the herbs.
All normal.
Except the taste of smoke in her lungs.
Except the echo still curling in her skull:
Not Maria. Not fully.
The village of Eldermere awoke like it always did.
Fishermen hauling nets slick with salt and curse words.
Vendors shouting deals that danced between honesty and poetry.
Children racing through alleys with half-eaten fruit and full-blown mischief.
The sea shimmered beyond the hills, slow and patient.
But Maria stood still.
At the edge of the marketplace, apron tied too tight, eyes glazed over like the air around her had gone... thin.
"Maria!"
Serene's voice sliced through the bustle warm, exasperated, and painfully familiar.
She moved through the crowd like a storm wrapped in wool and herbs, a basket in her arms and judgment in her stride.
"You're drifting again," she said, pressing the basket into Maria's hands.
Vials clinked. Rosemary wafted.
"Take these to Old Mara. And don't go chasing starlight."
"I don't chase," Maria murmured.
"You drift. Like fog. Or fate. Either way, it's dangerous."
Maria smiled, soft and distant.
Serene's eyes narrowed just briefly as if searching for something behind her foster daughter's gaze.
Then she turned, muttering about wilted ginger and the future being hopelessly stubborn.
Maria walked.
Past the honey vendor who always winked.
Past the statue of the sea goddess which today had a crack across its left eye that hadn't been there yesterday.
Past the crooked alley where children whispered stories too old for their tongues.
She walked...
...but something behind her eyes was already elsewhere.
The dream still clung to her ribs.
Twin suns.
A name she didn't recognize but still somehow claimed her.
Elysia.
It felt warm in her mouth.
Like fire before it burned.
A breeze kicked up behind her.
Gentle.
But every hanging ribbon in the market fluttered at once in the opposite direction.
No one else noticed.
But Maria did.
Her fingers flexed tighter around the basket.
"I'm awake," she whispered.
"But I don't think the world wants me to be."
Above her, far past the rooftops and smoke trails, a single white feather drifted from a sky with no bird in sight.
It spun once...
then vanished into mist.
Maria wove through Eldermere's morning crowd, the herb basket balanced on her hip, a faint frown pulling at her mouth.
The scent of baked pears and woodsmoke chased her down the cobbled path as the vendors shouted their daily chants.
"Two apples for a song!"
"Fresh fish! Only slightly judging you!"
"Free salt with gossip!"
A boy ran past trailing a goose on a string. The goose, for its part, looked furious.
At the fruit stall, old Mistress Thayer was arguing with a sheep.
Yes. A sheep.
"No, Rollo, those plums aren't for chewing, they're for the High Table! Honestly, don't look at me in that tone!"
Maria stifled a laugh and nearly dropped the basket.
She rounded the baker's corner just as a man selling ribbons tripped into a wheelbarrow of honey jars.
A sticky explosion followed.
"Well," the ribbon man said, rising with a dazed blink, "at least now I'm fashionable and delicious."
Even the geese snorted.
Maria stopped at the small stone cottage behind the bakery a warm, flower-draped place that smelled of mint and smoke.
She knocked once.
"Come in or get cursed!" came the familiar croak.
She pushed the door open.
Old Mara, the retired midwife and herbalist, was hunched over a steaming kettle. Her hair looked like it had fought with the wind and lost.
She squinted at Maria.
"You're late."
"I was dodging flying sheep," Maria said, setting the basket down. "And sticky merchants."
"Mm. Good. That means the town's still functional."
Mara rummaged through the herbs, sniffed one, bit another.
"What's this? You call this fresh mist wort?"
"I call it better than what you grow in your moss pot."
Mara cackled. "You'll make a fine tyrant one day."
"I'm aiming for local menace, not tyranny," Maria said.
Mara waved her off with a grunt and started measuring powders into jars with the speed of someone who didn't have time for fate.
"Dreams still visiting?" she asked quietly.
Maria froze for half a second.
"Sometimes."
Mara didn't look up.
"Be careful. Not every echo is memory. Some are warning bells."
Maria nodded once, but said nothing more.
She stepped out into the daylight, the warmth of Mara's cottage already fading behind her.
The crowd had thinned slightly. The rhythm of the day had slowed. Laughter and bells drifted like birdsong.
Then
she saw him.
Across the square. Near the well.
A man.
Tall. Cloaked in silver-stitched velvet.
His hood shadowed most of his face.
But not his eyes.
They locked with hers still, intent, far too knowing.
The world seemed to go still around her.
The sun dimmed, or maybe her breath caught too hard to notice its warmth.
"Do I... know you?"
The question escaped before she could stop it.
The man tilted his head. Not confused.
Curious.
A slow, soft smile curved his mouth.
"Not yet," he said.
And then
He turned.
And vanished into the crowd like smoke scattering into wind.
Maria stood unmoving.
Fingers clenched around the basket.
Her chest ached not with fear.
With recognition.
As if something ancient
had just turned toward her
and smiled.
At midday, the Celestine Palace glowed like a cathedral of light.
Sunlight filtered through crystal windows, painting rainbows across the marble floor. Courtiers whispered beneath chandeliers shaped like blooming stars. Scroll-bearers moved like clockwork. Every robe rustled like a well-rehearsed line.
And at the center of it all
Queen Eleanor sat, crown steady, hands folded.
Perfect. Composed.
Dying quietly.
The council chamber rang with voices.
"The border disputes in Eastern Idravon continue,"
"Temple unrest. The River Order's begun citing dreams again."
"Merchants claim increased fare interference nonsense, of course..."
She nodded. Asked questions. Approved sanctions.
And all the while, the seat beside her sat empty.
"Your Radiance," a scribe said hesitantly, "the anniversary of the Princess's disappearance is in two weeks. Shall we cancel the observance this year? The people don't expect"
"We observe it," Eleanor said, quiet but firm.
The room stilled.
"We always observe it."
The scribe bowed, eyes lowered. "Of course."
After the session, she returned to her private corridor. Her footsteps echoed louder than they should have.
A servant waited outside her chambers, bowing deeply.
"The Lady Archivist asks if you'll attend the historical exhibition this evening, Your Grace. They're unveiling the"
"Not tonight," Eleanor interrupted. "Send my regrets."
"Should I say why?"
She paused.
"Tell her I am... tending to the dead."
In her drawing room, untouched tea cooled on polished glass. An untouched book sat open to the same page for five days.
The only sound was the ticking of the celestial clock on the mantle.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Every hour it chimed, and every hour
she hoped
this would be the one
where something returned.
High above the sea, in a chamber veiled by silk and silence, Queen Eleanor stood rigid at her window, the horizon split by silver.
Behind her, the door opened.
Soft footsteps.
Alaric.
"Still awake?"
"I can't sleep." Her voice was thin. Brittle.
She didn't turn.
"I see her. Every night."
She gripped the windowsill until her knuckles paled.
"She cries for me, Alaric. Still. After all these years."
He crossed the room and gently rested a hand on her back.
"It's been fifteen years, love."
"She's out there. I know it."
Alaric leaned his forehead to hers, closing his eyes.
"If there's a ghost left in this kingdom, we'll find it," he said.
"But you... you have to come back to the living."
Outside, the stars blinked once.
One dimmed.
The storm didn't touch Eldermere.
Not truly.
Not yet.
But over Serene's cottage, the clouds stirred in strange rhythms slow, circling, holding something unspoken.
Inside, Maria sat alone.
The apothecary shop was quiet, herbs half-bundled on the table.
The fire crackled soft. The candlelight flickered too fast.
Like it was afraid of the dark outside the glass.
Serene had gone to the outlying ridge to tend to a fevered child.
She wouldn't return till dawn.
Maria should've gone to bed.
Instead, she hummed.
A melody.
She didn't know it.
But it knew her.
Her fingers traced the rim of a ceramic cup, spinning it idly.
A wind passed the window and all the bottles on the shelf clinked at once.
Not violently.
Almost... rhythmically.
A lullaby?
She stood, brushing off her skirt.
That's when she saw it.
A single white flower resting on the doorstep.
Star-shaped. Petals curling at the tips.
She opened the door.
No one stood beyond.
But she knew this flower.
She'd seen it in a book once.
It grew only in Thornspire.
"No..." she whispered.
But her hand was already reaching for it.
The moment her fingers brushed the stem, the wind stilled.
And a hum low, silver-toned began to rise inside her bones.
Not from outside.
From within.
Maria blinked.
She was standing.
Then she wasn't.
Darkness curled around her vision.
And the forest rose to meet her.
Somewhere above the stars, a room once filled with light cracked beneath silence.
Aurelith's old chamber.
The throne of fire and mercy stood empty, its flames long stilled.
Petals of scorched glass drifted down like slow ash.
On the high balcony, a figure stood alone
robed in silver threads, eyes dim with memory.
Vaelith.
He stared downward.
Through the planes.
Through the mortal breath of time.
Through the tangled rivers of fate.
His gaze found the pulse below a flare, faint and defiant, blooming in a forest that had long rejected gods.
"The Tear stirs," he said quietly.
He turned.
And vanished.
Maria opened her eyes.
She was walking.
She didn't remember standing.
Didn't remember crossing the garden path.
Didn't remember the moment her bare feet touched moss.
The trees were endless.
Black bark. Silver mist.
No stars above. No wind.
Only that hum louder now, resonating in her ribs.
The forest dream welcomed her gently...
and then closed behind her like a locked door.
At first, it felt like memory.
A field she'd known as a child.
Voices. Laughter.
But the flowers blinked.
The statues shifted.
The air tasted like ash.
And suddenly, she wasn't in a field.
She was deep.
And the trees were watching.
They moved like lungs.
Bent toward her with interest.
Figures unfolded from the roots long limbs, skeletal faces, crowned in antlers like stone and ash.
Their skulls twisted sideways as they approached.
The Thorn-borne.
They whispered without sound.
Maria backed away
but her feet found no ground.
The forest warped.
Gravity blurred.
She was standing before a massive tree, coiled tightly with a creature so large it seemed carved from the world itself.
A serpent, scales ridged in rusted gold.
Eyes like hollow moons.
It opened its mouth.
Not in hunger.
In memory.
The Thorn-borne reached out.
And inside her chest
heat.
A beat.
A pulse.
You were not born. You were remade.
You were fire, forgotten.
Her eyes widened.
The serpent stopped moving.
Its eyes... blinked.
The Thorn-borne reeled back.
Maria glowed.
Just slightly.
But enough.
The illusion cracked.
The sky above fractured like ice struck by lightning
and from the trees stepped a figure cloaked in smoke.
Melville.
He didn't speak at first.
He lifted one hand.
Carved a glyph into the air.
A ripple shot outward like shattering glass.
The serpent vanished.
The Thorn-borne dissolved into ash and root.
Only Maria remained kneeling, breath sharp, trembling.
"You weren't supposed to awaken here," Melville said softly.
"Not yet."
Maria looked up at him, tears in her eyes.
"What am I?" she whispered.
Melville tilted his head.
"You are what the dark wanted first...
and what it lost."
He turned.
And the trees swallowed him.
Maria remained alone.
But the air no longer hummed.
It waited.
So did the world.
She woke with soil in her hair.
The first thing she noticed was the silence.
The fire in the hearth had gone out.
The candle on the table still burned.
But it flickered the way a secret does when it's trying not to be seen.
She sat up slowly.
Her legs ached.
Her palms were raw.
A strand of moss clung to her wrist like a memory that hadn't let go yet.
The door was locked.
She didn't remember locking it.
Serene stood across the room.
Unmoving.
Her cloak was soaked from rain that hadn't fallen.
A basket of crushed herbs hung from her arm, untouched.
She didn't ask what happened.
She didn't rush forward.
She just looked at Maria the way the sea watches a storm coming in.
"You were gone," she said quietly.
"I found your bed empty. Your shoes still inside. And yet... dirt on the windowsill."
Maria swallowed.
"I didn't mean to I wasn't trying to"
Serene held up a hand.
"Do you remember where you went?"
Maria hesitated.
"I remember... the trees.
They moved.
There was something huge. Watching.
And something else. Not evil. Not exactly. But..."
She looked down.
"...hungry."
Serene finally stepped forward.
She knelt and took Maria's hands in her own.
They were still warm.
"The forest called to you," Serene said.
"It doesn't do that for just anyone."
"Why me?" Maria whispered.
"I'm no one. Just a girl. Just... me."
Serene's gaze didn't waver.
"That's the most dangerous lie you could believe."
From behind them, the wind slipped through the cracks in the shutters.
It carried the scent of smoke and salt and something... older.
Maria clutched the locket around her throat.
"It was glowing," she said.
"In the forest. When I thought I was dying... it pulsed."
"Then it wasn't just protecting you," Serene said softly.
"It was remembering you."
Maria turned her face toward the window.
Beyond the glass, the stars blinked like they were trying to spell something she wasn't ready to read.
"I don't know what's happening to me," she said.
Serene stood, pulled a blanket from the chair, and draped it around her shoulders.
"You don't need to know. Not yet."
"But the world does."
The Royal Academy was asleep.
Its towers whispered only wind.
No bells rang. No torches flared.
But in the lowest wing beneath the marble, beneath the law
a girl turned pages she wasn't allowed to touch.
Her name was Saphira Vanelle.
Youngest daughter of House Vanelle, third in line to nothing important.
But clever. Quiet.
And endlessly curious.
By candlelight, her ink-stained fingers traced the edge of a crimson-bound folio:
"Fragments of the Flame Epoch: Redacted."
She wasn't supposed to be here.
This level was restricted.
The scroll room hadn't been opened in fifty years.
But she'd borrowed the groundskeeper's ring.
He hadn't noticed. People rarely noticed her.
That was her gift.
Being overlooked.
Until the name looked back.
Halfway down the page, beneath ancient glyphs and scar-sealed script, she saw it.
Burned into vellum that trembled faintly under her touch.
A name she had never read before but somehow felt like she'd dreamed.
E L Y S I A
And just beneath it, faint but still glowing
a second name, one the quills didn't dare copy:
A U R E L I T H
The candle flickered.
The air shifted.
A breath not her own passed down her spine.
She looked around the archive.
No footsteps.
No shadows.
But the air was thicker now.
Like the page itself was listening.
Then...
the name began to fade.
One letter at a time.
Not burned.
Not erased.
Withdrawn.
As if the world had just realized it had said too much.
Saphira gasped and reached forward.
But the folio snapped shut.
Hard.
Bleeding ink across her fingertips.
She stared at them.
The stain was shaped like a flame.
Behind her, one of the statue guardians in the alcove cracked
a small fissure through its chest.
She spun.
No one.
But she heard a whisper.
Not in her ear.
In the bones of the room:
"She is not forgotten."
Saphira backed away, heart pounding.
She turned and ran
robes catching the corners of forgotten scrolls, her candle sputtering
And behind her, in the dark of the archive vault,
the ancient ink began to write itself again.
But this time...
only one name returned.
And it burned.
AURELITH