The path through the silverwood forest was overgrown, ancient, and veiled in silence. Elara walked beside Kael, their footsteps swallowed by moss and fallen leaves. Shafts of light pierced the canopy above them like ghostly fingers, dancing across Kael's violet cloak. Elara kept her eyes on the ground, too afraid of what she might see if she looked too far ahead.
The air felt strange here—thicker, charged, like it remembered every footfall. Like it was watching.
They had been walking for hours before Elara spoke.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Her voice was quiet, but the question held weight. "If I was… chosen, or Moonborn, or whatever you say I am—why didn't anyone ever come for me?"
Kael didn't look at her. His voice was even. "Because those who knew you existed wanted you hidden. And those who didn't… would have wanted you dead."
Elara felt her stomach twist. "You mean people are hunting me?"
"They were," Kael said. "Some still are. The Bloodborne, the Hollowed Kings, the ones who remember the old magic. They fear what the Crowned Heart will awaken. You are a light they cannot smother—so they tried to keep you in the dark instead."
She paused, letting his words sink in.
"So I was… hidden on purpose. Left alone on purpose."
"Yes."
The ache in her chest burned, but it wasn't sadness—not anymore. It was fury. Controlled, quiet, sharp as frost.
"I should hate them," she whispered.
Kael finally turned to her. "Maybe. But hatred won't help you when the time comes to rise. You'll need something stronger."
Elara blinked. "Like what?"
Kael's expression darkened, but not with anger—with memory. "Truth. Will. Heart."
They stopped at the edge of a narrow ravine. A stone bridge stretched across it, crumbling but still intact. Beyond it, the trees grew stranger—twisted silver trunks and glowing blue blossoms lit the forest in a ghostly light. Magic pooled there. Elara could feel it, humming low in her bones like a forgotten melody.
"What is this place?" she asked.
Kael stepped onto the bridge without hesitation. "A border," he said. "Between what was and what must be. Once you cross it, you'll start to remember."
"Remember what?"
He didn't answer.
As she stepped onto the bridge, her heart stuttered. A vision—sharp and sudden—flashed through her mind: a throne made of moonstone, a woman cloaked in stars holding her as a baby, singing a lullaby in a language she'd never heard before… but somehow knew.
She stumbled, grabbing the railing.
"Elara?" Kael was at her side instantly.
"I… I saw something," she gasped. "A woman. My mother, maybe? I think I remembered her."
Kael's face was unreadable, but his eyes glinted. "The closer you get to the Crown, the more it will call to you. It will show you what was taken."
They crossed into the other side of the forest.
The trees whispered in a language Elara could almost understand. Her skin prickled. Something was waking inside her—something deep and ancient, like roots pushing through soil after a long winter.
And for the first time in her life, the cold that had lived in her heart for so long… began to thaw.
"Kael?" she said, her voice steadier now.
"Yes?"
"If I really am meant to rule… why do I feel like I'm still breaking?"
He looked at her, and this time his voice softened. "Because glass must break before it becomes a window. And a shattered heart, if reforged, can become a crown."
Elara said nothing. But she walked taller after that.
And in the glowing woods, beneath the watchful stars, the path ahead no longer felt like a road to ruin.
It felt like the beginning of something sacred.
Of something hers.