A Vow of Stone and Starlight

POV: Isolde (Izzy) Thorne

The royal guards did not knock. They kicked the door so hard that the wooden frame cracked.

"Everyone out!" a man yelled. His armor was dark and smelled like old blood. "By order of King Alaric, all men of fighting age are to report to the town square."

My heart stopped. I looked at my younger brother, Leo. He was only seventeen. He was thin and pale, his hands still stained with the blue dye from our weaving loom. He wasn't a soldier. He was a creator. If they sent him to the front lines of war, he wouldn't last a week.

"Please," I said, stepping in front of Leo. "He is sick. He can't carry a sword."

The guard didn't even look at me. He grabbed Leo by the collar of his shirt and dragged him toward the door.

"Izzy!" Leo cried out. His eyes were wide with terror.

"Let him go!" I screamed, lunging forward.

The guard pushed me back. I hit the floor hard. I watched as they threw my brother into a wooden cage on the back of a wagon. There were other boys inside, all crying, all hopeless.

"There is one way to save him, girl," a neighbor whispered, leaning over me. It was Old Martha. She pointed a shaking finger toward the palace sitting high on the obsidian mountain. "The Catalyst Trials. The King needs a bride to take his curse. If a girl wins, she gets one wish. Any wish."

I looked at the palace. It was a place of death. Every woman who went there never came back. They said King Alaric was a stone monster who ate the lives of his brides.

But then I heard Leo’s scream as the wagon started to move.

I didn't have a choice.

I ran to the back of our small hut and pulled up a loose floorboard. Hidden underneath was a small spool of golden thread. It wasn't normal silk. It glowed with a soft, warm light. It was the Starlight thread, the source of my illegal magic.

In Solvalla, weavers like me were hunted. If the King found out what I was, he wouldn't marry me. He would hang me.

I sat in front of a broken mirror. I took a deep breath and began to weave. I didn't weave a dress. I wove a spell. I pulled the golden light from the thread and pressed it against my skin.

I watched as my reflection changed. My messy brown hair turned into a waterfall of silk. My rough, hardworking hands became soft and pale. My face shifted until I looked like a noble lady, someone beautiful, someone cold, someone who belonged in a palace.

I stole the face of Lady Isadora, a noblewoman who had died in the fever last winter. No one would know.

"I'm coming for you, Leo," I whispered. My voice even sounded different. It sounded like music.

I ran all the way to the palace gates. Thousands of women were already there. They wore expensive silks and sparkling jewels. I felt like a wolf in a sheep’s skin. If I tripped, if I spoke wrong, if my magic flickered for even a second, I was dead.

The heavy iron gates groaned open.

"The King is coming!" a herald shouted.

A heavy silence fell over the crowd. Then, I heard it. Thump. Thump. Thump.

It sounded like heavy rocks hitting the floor. A man stepped out from the shadows of the throne room. My breath caught in my throat.

He was tall, with broad shoulders, but he didn't move like a human. His skin was the color of midnight. His arms and neck were covered in jagged black obsidian stone. Even his face was half-petrified, making him look like a beautiful, terrifying statue.

This was King Alaric. The Cursed Sovereign.

He didn't speak. He couldn't. The stone had already taken his voice. He walked down the line of women, his eyes cold and dead. Every girl he passed shivered. Some even fainted. He looked at them like they were nothing but meat.

My heart hammered against my ribs. "Don't look at me, don't look at me," I prayed. But then I remembered Leo. Look at me. Pick me.

Alaric stopped in front of me.

The air around him was freezing. He smelled like rain and cold earth. He leaned down, his face inches from mine. I could see the cracks in the stone on his cheek.

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through my head.

“You,” a voice echoed in my brain. It wasn't a sound. It was a thought. It was deep, dark, and filled with a strange hunger.

Alaric’s hand shot out. His fingers were cold as ice and hard as rock. He didn't grab my hand softly. He gripped my wrist so hard I almost cried out.

His eyes locked onto mine. For a second, I saw a spark of gold in his obsidian pupils.

“I know what you are, Weaver,” the voice whispered in my mind.

I froze. My magic flared, the golden light under my skin screaming in fear. He knew. He knew I was a fraud. He knew I was a commoner from the slums.

I tried to pull away, but he leaned closer, his stone lips brushing against my ear.

“If you want your brother to live, you will play your part. But if you try to run, I will turn you into dust myself.”

He pulled me toward the throne room, dragging me away from the only world I knew. The gates slammed shut behind us.

I was trapped in a palace of stone with a king who knew my deadliest secret.

And then, I felt it. Something warm was spreading from his hand into my arm. I looked down and gasped.

The black stone on his wrist was turning back into human skin.

He wasn't just picking a bride. He was picking a battery. And I realized with a jolt of horror that he didn't just want my magic.

He wanted to drain me until there was nothing left.