The moon was dying.
Not the kind of death that fell quietly, like a leaf drifting into a stream, but the kind that bled across the sky, staining the clouds in bruised shades of violet and ash. It was under this waning moon that Aelwyn Thornbloom was born, her first cries swallowed by a silence older than the oldest stone in the kingdom of Lumeria.
Even the courtiers, the proud men and women who had gathered to witness the birth of a royal child, could not hear her over the sudden hush that fell across the crystal towers. The bells that were supposed to herald her life rang only once, then shivered to a stop, as if the world itself had taken a breath and waited.
Aelwyn's mother, Queen Seraphine, lay pale and exhausted, clutching her daughter as though the child's frailty might vanish if pressed too hard. Yet the midwives and court seers recoiled, whispering behind their hands. They spoke of portents and curses, words that fell like knives in the golden nursery.
"They say she is part fairy," one whispered, eyes wide. "Half-human, half-blood of the old realm."
The nurse shook her head. "No," she said, her voice trembling. "Not half. She is fully chosen. And the crown will remember her."
The crown. That cursed circle of thorns, lying deep beneath the palace vaults, had not stirred for a century. The legends said it only awakened for those fated to rule—or to break the kingdoms. And tonight, in the cold glass of the nursery windows, it hummed. A single, almost imperceptible vibration ran through the floors, through the walls, through the cradle where Aelwyn's small body rested.
Her eyes, pale as moonlight and impossibly large for a newborn, flicked open. They were not human eyes, the seers would later whisper, but windows to something far older—something that had seen kingdoms rise and fall, dreams shatter, and stars die. She had seen the crown before she had even breathed her first breath.
The first time Aelwyn heard a song, she was still too small to stand.
It was a lullaby, one that the wind had carried from the forest of Thornwilde. The trees whispered it, their voices intertwined with the faint memory of things long forgotten. "Remember, child… remember, child…" they murmured.
No one else heard it. Her nurses dismissed it as infant imagination, but she remembered. Every note lodged itself in her tiny heart, and she hummed along, though her lips could not yet form the words.
By the time she could walk, she could see the shadows of things that no one else could. A ghost flitted across the moonlit halls of the palace. A wisp of flame danced in the corridor, unsummoned. A reflection in the glass sometimes answered before she spoke.
The court whispered again. "The child is strange," they said. "Too quiet. Too knowing."
And yet, even as whispers grew, there were others who watched in awe. Her father, King Alaric, did not speak much, but when he glanced at her, there was reverence in his eyes, tinged with fear. "She is ours," he said quietly to no one. "And yet… she belongs to them as well."
It was not until Aelwyn's seventh winter that she first touched the crown.
The vault beneath the palace was vast, an echoing cathedral of stone and crystal, lit only by the faint glow of the moon refracted through crystal towers above. Aelwyn had been drawn there, as if by some invisible string. Her bare feet made no sound as she walked along the echoing halls, her small hand brushing against walls that seemed to pulse with anticipation.
There it lay. The crown of thorns, coiled like a sleeping serpent, blackened with age, yet faintly glimmering with silver-blue light. She reached out, trembling, her fingers brushing a thorn. The instant she did, the crown shivered, rose, and hovered above her hand. The air hummed, thick with magic, and she felt it pierce into her, binding itself to her heartbeat, her memories, her very soul.
The first whispers reached her ears then, clear and unyielding.
"Rise, child. Rise, and know your place. Rise, or fall."
She did not understand. Not yet. But she remembered the lullabies, the forest songs, the moon's dying light. And she did not pull her hand away.
Far from the palace, in the forests of Thornwilde, someone else was awake that night.
Caeron Vael, exiled knight and oath-bound protector of a crown long thought silent, crouched among the shadows. His sword lay across his knees, the blade etched with runes that remembered every soul it had claimed. He had heard the stirrings, the tremor in the magic that ran like a heartbeat across the realm. He had sworn an oath to guard it, and now, centuries later, that oath demanded he return.
He did not know the child's name. He did not yet know her face. But the air tasted of destiny, and his heart, long encased in duty, throbbed in answer.
And somewhere, far beyond the glass towers and the whispering woods, Mireth the Veil-Born stirred in her sleep. Her dreams were crowded with possibilities, and yet each night she awoke knowing the truth: she could see every future in Eirathae, but she could not see her own.
Tonight, the crown had awakened. And with it, the story began.
A story of thorns and blood, of love and betrayal, of kings who would fall and queens who would rise.
A story that would tear kingdoms apart, rewrite destinies, and demand a crown that was never meant to be worn by a human hand.
Ending for Chapter:
Aelwyn stood in the moonlight, crown hovering above her small palm. Its thorns glinted, whispering promises of power and peril alike. The wind from Thornwilde carried a warning she did not yet understand:
"The crown chooses, child. And what it chooses… it will not release."
Her heart beat fast. Her fingers tightened. And in that instant, she became the first note in a song the world would never forget.