LOGINPrincess Elyria Valenor has spent her life preparing to inherit the throne of Aetherion alongside the man she loves, Cassian Draven. But on the night of her coronation, a devastating betrayal destroys everything. Branded a traitor, stripped of her crown, and forced into exile, Elyria vanishes from the kingdom she once called home. Years later, whispers spread across the realm of a feared Dragon Queen and the return of an ancient power long thought extinct. As mysterious attacks shake the kingdom and old secrets begin to surface, King Cassian finds himself haunted by the past he cannot escape. With Aetherion on the brink of chaos, Elyria returns to confront those who stole her future. But revenge is never simple, and the truth behind her downfall may be far more dangerous than either of them imagined.
View MoreChapter 17Cassian's POVThe report arrived on a gray morning, delivered by a courier too young to fully understand the weight of what he carried, judging by how quickly he excused himself once it was in my hands.I read it twice before allowing myself to feel anything at all.*No confirmed sightings. Villagers uncooperative or genuinely uninformed. Recommend suspending further inquiry pending new evidence.*Relief hit me first, sharp and immediate, followed almost instantly by shame at how much relief I'd allowed myself to feel. A dead end meant she remained unfound, which meant, by whatever fragile logic I'd been clinging to these past weeks, that she remained possibly, plausibly, alive somewhere beyond my reach.It also meant Ashworth would not be satisfied, not for long.I found her in the council antechamber not an hour later, already reading the same report, her expression giving away nothing beyond mild, practiced disappointment."Uncooperative villagers," she said, not looking
Chapter 16Elyria's POVThe dream came the way they always did lately — sudden, vivid, more real than sleep had any right to feel.I stood somewhere I had never been, on a cliffside overlooking an ocean of clouds instead of water, the air thin and cold enough to sting. Mountains rose around me, sharper and taller than the Ashen range, their peaks disappearing into a sky the color of a bruise, purple and gold bleeding together at the edges.And then I heard it. A sound too deep to be entirely a roar, too resonant to be entirely thunder, rolling up from somewhere far below the cliff's edge, vibrating through the stone beneath my feet and into my very bones.*Elyria.*The voice wasn't spoken so much as felt, pressing against the inside of my skull like something ancient trying to fold itself into a shape my mind could hold. I turned, searching the empty cliffside, finding nothing, no one, only wind and stone and that impossible sky.*You are close now. Closer than you have been in three
Elyria’s POVI hadn’t set foot in the village since the night I first arrived, half-starved and half-convinced every stranger’s glance meant my death. Walking down the muddy main road in daylight now, hood pulled low despite the mild morning, felt like tempting fate directly rather than simply fleeing from it.“You’re certain about this?” Harry asked, walking close beside me, Alex trailing a few paces behind, keeping watch the way he’d insisted on doing since the riders’ visit.“No,” I admitted. “But hiding hasn’t made this problem disappear. Maybe honesty will.”“Or it’ll hand her exactly the confirmation she’s looking for.”“That’s a risk I’m choosing to take.”The tavern sat at the edge of the square, weathered wood and a faded sign creaking gently in the wind. Smoke curled from its chimney, and even from outside, I could smell bread baking, warm and achingly ordinary against the fear coiled tight in my stomach.Inside, the tavern was mostly empty at this hour, save for an old man
Elyria’s POVNight fell heavier than usual, thick clouds smothering what little moonlight might have otherwise slipped through the trees. We’d spent the hours since Alex’s warning preparing in the only ways we could—Maren hiding what little evidence of us existed, Harry pacing a groove into the floorboards, and me trying, mostly without success, to keep my breathing steady.It was the horses we heard first. Distant at first, then closer, hooves against wet earth, moving with a purpose that no lost traveler would have.“Douse the fire,” Maren said quietly, already moving toward the window. “Now.”I closed my hand, and the flame in the hearth died instantly, plunging the cottage into near-total darkness, broken only by the faint gray light bleeding through the shutters. Harry froze mid-step, and even Alex, who had insisted on staying despite Maren’s protests, went utterly still.Through the gap in the shutters, I watched two riders emerge from the treeline, dismounting a short distance
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