The morning mist still clung to the palace towers when Aelwyn Thornbloom woke with a start. Her small fingers had been clutching the pillow, but the crown beneath it was gone.
Gone, yet its weight lingered in her chest, an almost painful echo that pulsed with a rhythm she had never known. She scrambled out of bed, her bare feet cold against the polished crystal floors. The nursery was empty, the air silent except for the faint hum of magic that seemed to thrum in the walls themselves.
Aelwyn's heart raced. She remembered the whispers—the lullabies of Thornwilde that had called her to the vault the night before. Could the crown have moved on its own? Could it have followed her?
She clutched her small cloak around her shoulders and tiptoed to the window. Beyond the palace gardens, the forest of Thornwilde seemed alive. The trees swayed even though the air was still. Shadows moved among the trunks, dancing just at the edge of vision.
Then she heard it. A voice, low and melodic, curling through the mist.
"You have touched what remembers."
Her breath caught. The voice was not human. Not exactly. It was older than the oldest stories her nurses had ever whispered, and somehow, impossibly, it felt like it belonged to her.
She ran, barefoot, down the palace halls. She passed the mirror-lined corridors, catching glimpses of shadows that did not belong to her, and realized that her reflection was… different. The girl in the glass was still Aelwyn, yet her eyes glimmered faintly, silvery-blue, as if the crown had etched its memory into her very being.
Far away, in the dense heart of Thornwilde, Caeron Vael moved silently through the trees. He had sensed the crown's stirring during the night and followed its invisible pulse, which now led him closer to the palace than he had expected. Each step through the forest was precise, careful, as if he were threading a needle through magic itself.
He paused at a clearing where the trees arched overhead, forming a natural cathedral. The wind whispered warnings, naming him, naming the crown, naming the child he did not yet know.
"Show yourself," he muttered, sword in hand. "I do not wish to harm, but I will protect what must be protected."
The clearing shimmered. Leaves glowed faintly, veins of magic pulsing with life. And then… a flicker of movement. Something small, bright, and impossibly fragile darted between the trunks.
Aelwyn.
She had slipped from the palace unnoticed, drawn by the hum of the crown and the memory of the lullabies. As she stepped into the clearing, the grass beneath her feet seemed to part willingly, bowing to her presence. The crown hovered above her palm once more, small thorns spinning like tiny stars, glimmering with a light that felt alive.
She felt a surge of something new—power. Not the sleepy magic of lullabies, not the echoes of whispered songs. Something raw, fierce, tied to the blood in her veins and the moon that had birthed her.
She raised her other hand, and a wisp of silver light spiraled from the crown, wrapping around her like a second skin. The forest gasped. Leaves shivered. Birds took flight, though the air was still. And Caeron, standing in the shadows, froze.
"You… are the child," he said quietly, as if speaking too loudly might shatter the moment.
Aelwyn turned, startled. She had not expected another human. But he did not move like one of the palace servants, nor did he carry the fear of the courtiers. There was something older in him, something bound by oaths and shadows, something that hummed with the same pull as the crown.
"Who… are you?" she asked, voice trembling.
"Someone who protects what the crown chooses," he said, voice steady. "And someone who has been waiting a very long time."
The crown pulsed between them, and Aelwyn felt its power surge. Her hair lifted, strands floating as if underwater. The thorns spun faster, sharper, almost threatening, and she realized for the first time that touching it carried a price. The hum in her chest now felt like a tether—pulling, binding, demanding.
Her eyes glowed faintly, and the forest recoiled. Not in fear—but in recognition. The trees bent closer, the wind whispered secrets in languages she half-understood. Her fingers twitched, and the crown responded, lifting higher, spinning like a planet around her small hand.
"Do you… control it?" she asked, voice barely audible.
Caeron shook his head. "No. It chooses. And it has chosen you. But choosing is not the same as giving. That crown… it takes as much as it gives."
A sudden snap of branches echoed behind them. Both spun around. From the shadows emerged a figure cloaked in black, her presence both terrifying and hypnotic. Mireth the Veil-Born.
"I have seen this night coming for longer than either of you can imagine," she said, her voice low and lyrical, like water trickling over stones. "The crown awakens, the child awakens, and yet… you are not ready."
Aelwyn shrank back instinctively, but the crown flared in response to Mireth's words. Silver sparks arced from the thorns, striking the ground, leaving scorch marks in the moss.
"Who… are you?" Aelwyn demanded, her small voice firm despite her fear.
"Someone who knows the price of power," Mireth said, stepping closer, eyes glimmering with unreadable intention. "And someone who will ensure you either survive it… or become a legend that the world will remember instead of you."
Caeron tightened his grip on his sword. "She is a child. Do not speak to her in riddles."
Mireth smiled faintly. "A child? Perhaps. Or perhaps she is the storm the world did not see coming."
The crown pulsed again, brighter this time, thrumming with a rhythm that matched the child's heartbeat. Aelwyn felt it tugging at her very soul. Power, danger, destiny—they all converged in that instant, and the forest seemed to hold its breath.
Something was coming. Something inevitable. And in that moment, Aelwyn understood, without question, that nothing in Eirathae would ever be the same.
The crown had chosen. And now, so had fate.
Chapter Ending:
Aelwyn's lips barely moved as she whispered to herself:
"If I survive… I will not be what they expect. I will be what I choose."
The trees in Thornwilde shivered. A distant howl echoed from the shadows. And Mireth's smile deepened, knowing that the first thorn had been planted—and the story was only beginning.