Thrones of Shadow

Chapter 3 : The Burning Crest

Chapter 3: The Burning Crest

****Elara's Point of View****

The first thing Elara noticed was the sound of fire.

Not a crackling hearth or the warm purr of a brazier, but roaring flames—wild and hungry, devouring stone and timber with a wrathful breath. The air around her was thick and hot, choking her lungs with smoke. Her heart thundered as she turned in the dream, unable to control her limbs fully, a strange lucidity dancing on the edge of a nightmare.

She stood in a vast hall—a throne room, perhaps—its high ceilings blackened by soot. Banners hung in tatters, and towering stained-glass windows had exploded inward, shards glittering like cruel stars. Red light spilled from somewhere above, and in the center of the inferno stood a crest, carved deep into the stone floor. A phoenix, rising with wings ablaze, wrapped around a dagger crowned in silver.

The image seared into her mind, pulsing with an ache she couldn’t name.

The fire rose again, curling around her ankles, and yet… she didn’t burn.

“Elara.”

She spun at the sound, though the voice was not one she recognized. A woman—veiled in white with glowing eyes like molten gold—stood just behind the throne. Her face was obscured, but her posture was regal, unnaturally still.

“Find the fire within,” the woman whispered. “You were never meant to sleep in shadow.”

Elara opened her mouth to speak, but the dream shattered.

---

She gasped awake, drenched in sweat and tangled in her bedsheets, heart still hammering against her ribs. The apothecary’s loft above the shop was quiet save for the chirping of early sparrows and the creaking of floorboards settling with age.

But something was wrong.

Elara sat up—and froze.

There, on her bedside table, lay a pendant. Silver chain. Oval locket. And on its face, the phoenix and dagger crest from her dream, wrought in exquisite detail.

She didn’t own this.

Her breath caught. Hands trembling, she picked it up. It felt warm. Too warm.

She turned it over. Nothing on the back. No initials. No clasp markings. It hadn’t been there when she went to bed, she was certain of it.

Her pulse roared in her ears. She glanced around the room—no signs of forced entry. Her door was still locked from the inside.

“Elara?” came a soft knock downstairs. “You awake, dove?”

It was Mira, her employer and dear friend. Elara quickly slipped the pendant into her drawer and forced her voice steady.

“Yes! Just… coming!”

---

The shop was already bright with the morning sun filtering through the windows. Shelves were lined with herbs, tinctures, and salves—every inch smelling of lavender, mint, and thyme. Mira stood behind the counter, adjusting a display of honeyed cough drops.

“You slept late,” she said kindly. “Unusual for you.”

Elara offered a sheepish smile as she tied her apron. “Strange dreams.”

Mira didn’t pry. She never did. That was one of the things Elara loved most about her.

The day moved slowly. The usual customers came and went: farmers with aching joints, mothers seeking fever remedies, the odd traveler needing poultices for blisters. Elara moved on instinct, grounding herself in routine. It was the only way to quiet the lingering heat of that dream—and the pendant still pulsing like a buried coal in her drawer upstairs.

Then, just after midday, trouble walked in.

Or rather, limped in.

A frantic woman stumbled through the door, clutching a boy of no more than six in her arms. He was pale and wheezing, sweat glistening on his brow.

“Please,” the woman cried. “My son—he won’t stop coughing. He hasn’t eaten in two days. No healer in the village could help!”

Mira rushed forward to help the woman to a bench, while Elara was already gathering supplies.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“Bran,” the woman said. “Please… help him. Please.”

Elara knelt beside the child and gently peeled back the blanket covering him. His breathing was ragged, like wind through a cracked flute. A dry, rasping cough wracked his body every few seconds.

She touched his wrist. His pulse was fast, but faint.

“It’s a lung sickness,” she murmured. “Possibly croup—compounded with fever.”

She looked to Mira. “We’ll need elderbark tea. Ginger root. And the salve with eucalyptus.”

Mira nodded and hurried off. Elara leaned closer to the boy and whispered gently, “I’m going to help you breathe, little one. Just hold on.”

---

Over the next hour, Elara moved with practiced precision. She brewed the bitter tea and coaxed it down his throat in small sips. She massaged the eucalyptus salve into his chest and back, then mixed a tincture to soothe the cough. Her fingers worked swiftly but gently, every motion grounded in experience and compassion.

The mother watched her with wide, tearful eyes. “You’re a blessing,” she whispered.

Elara only smiled faintly. “He just needs rest now. Keep him warm. His fever should break before nightfall.”

The woman tried to press silver coins into Elara’s hand, but she gently refused.

“No payment. Just care for him.”

The woman burst into grateful sobs. Elara sat with her until Bran’s breathing steadied, then watched them leave with a strange tightness in her chest.

She turned to clean up—and saw her.

An old woman in a deep blue cloak stood by the shelf of healing herbs, hands clasped over the crook of her cane. Her hair was long and silver, braided with tiny charms and feathers. Her eyes were cloudy, but focused directly on Elara.

“I know that look,” the woman rasped. “The one you gave that child. That’s the look of someone born to heal.”

Elara blinked. “Thank you. Can I help you with something?”

The woman smiled, slow and knowing. “No, dear. I’m just… remembering. It’s been a long time since I saw a phoenix in the flesh.”

Elara’s skin chilled. “I… what?”

But the woman was already turning. “Careful now, child. Dreams carry more truth than people give them credit for.”

She stepped out the door before Elara could ask another question. By the time she rushed outside, the woman was gone—swallowed by the crowd.

---

That night, Elara couldn’t sleep.

She sat on the floor by her bedside, the pendant once again in her hand. Its weight had become unbearable. She turned it over and over, trying to remember anything—any scrap of memory from before the apothecary, before Mira took her in all those years ago.

Nothing but shadows.

She remembered being found, wandering alone near the edge of the woods. Remembered Mira wrapping her in a shawl and giving her a name because Elara couldn’t speak her own.

But now… the dreams. The fire. The crest.

And that woman. That phrase: “phoenix in the flesh.”

She undid the clasp on the pendant and clicked it open.

Inside was a miniature painting. A young girl—five, maybe six years old—with copper curls and bright eyes. She looked… familiar.

Behind her, painted with ghostly brushstrokes, was a castle with sharp towers and a red banner bearing the same crest.

Elara’s heart squeezed. Her vision blurred.

Was this her? That castle—was it real?

And why did part of her ache like something had been torn away?

She didn’t know what this meant. But the flame that had stirred in her dreams now burned low in her chest.

Something was changing.

And the past she thought was buried… might no longer stay hidden.

****Lucien’s POV****

The storm outside beat against the stained-glass windows of the Royal Archives, casting a kaleidoscope of fragmented colors across the ancient tomes lining the tall shelves. Lucien leaned over a large oak table, his black-gloved fingers flipping through the pages of an aged manuscript, the ink faded but still legible to the trained eye. The scent of old parchment, candle wax, and dust mingled with the rain’s metallic perfume wafting in from the balcony doors, barely cracked open.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not tonight. Not on the eve of the royal execution.

But something had drawn him—an itch beneath the skin, a whisper in his blood.

The crimson sigil of House Aerendale, long extinct, glared at him from the parchment like an accusation. A crest with twin wyverns coiled around a flame, scorched into history after the last known heir was supposedly slaughtered during the Silent Purge twenty years ago.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

He’d read these records before. Every new king was required to know the history of the seven noble houses. And yet now, in the silence of the archives, he saw it differently.

In one of the portraits tucked between pages, the artist’s ink sketch showed a woman—not regal or crowned, but wild-eyed, strong-jawed, and impossibly familiar. Her face, though rendered with only careful lines and smudges, gripped Lucien’s gaze like a ghost clawing through time.

His heart did something rare. It lurched.

“Couldn’t sleep?” came a voice from the archway.

Lucien didn’t look up. “I rarely do.”

Darius, the Commander of the King's Shadow Guard, entered silently, his boots barely making a sound on the marble. He held a folded parchment in one hand and a single dagger sheathed in silver in the other. His black uniform bore no insignia—only a red thread stitched down the sleeves, a mark of Lucien’s inner circle.

“You’re still chasing ghosts,” Darius said after a moment, eyes scanning the page Lucien hovered over.

“Maybe,” Lucien murmured, then closed the book. “Or maybe the past is clawing its way back from the grave.”

Darius arched a brow. “You sound like the old seer.”

Lucien turned, his cloak whispering as it moved. “I spoke to her this morning.”

Darius tensed. “You went to the Oracle?”

“She said something is stirring. Something... ancient. She spoke of fire reborn, of bloodlines hidden by shadows.”

“And you think this has to do with the Aerendale line?” Darius asked warily.

Lucien didn’t answer directly. Instead, he walked toward the portrait gallery across the archives. Tall oil paintings of kings, queens, and warlords lined the hallway like silent judges. He stopped in front of one in particular—King Vaelric, the tyrant responsible for the purge of the Aerendale family.

“They say he dreamed of fire in his final days,” Lucien said, his voice low. “Woke up screaming, clutching his chest, saying the flame had not been extinguished.”

“Paranoia,” Darius replied.

“Or prophecy.”

A beat of silence passed between them.

Lucien reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a piece of parchment—old, frayed, but still bearing the faded Aerendale seal. He’d discovered it two days ago hidden in a false panel in the royal vault, a location only the reigning monarch could access.

It wasn’t addressed to anyone. Merely a single phrase written in careful script.

"The flame endures where it should have died."

He turned to Darius, eyes cold and clear. “Tell me that doesn’t sound like a warning.”

Darius's jaw clenched. “You think there’s a survivor?”

“I think,” Lucien said carefully, “someone doesn’t want me to know if there is.”

Darius exhaled and handed Lucien the folded note he’d brought.

Lucien opened it.

A name.

A village.

A market date.

And below it, hastily scrawled: “She wears the flame around her neck.”

Lucien stared at it for a long moment, the gears in his mind grinding into place.

“This is from one of your informants?” he asked.

Darius nodded. “One of the scouts embedded in the outer provinces. He says an old woman recognized a young apothecary girl. Said she had her mother’s eyes.”

Lucien read the village name again—Brimholt.

His thoughts sharpened.

He had never heard of this apothecary girl. She was not on any lists of nobility or sub-royal survivors. And yet—her presence drew whispers. Her appearance triggered memories. And now this… pendant.

“What else?” Lucien asked.

“She keeps to herself. Helps the sick. No family. No records of adoption.” Darius hesitated. “She dreams of fire.”

Lucien’s eyes flicked up. “What?”

“The old woman said the girl’s nightmares shake the cottage walls. Always fire. Always the same crest—burning.”

A slow chill moved down Lucien’s spine.

Everything in him—every instinct, every taught discipline—told him this was no coincidence. Magic had been nearly eradicated in the realm, but echoes still lived in blood, and in dreams. Especially blood born of royal lines.

“She doesn’t know who she is,” Darius said finally.

Lucien stepped into the light of a flickering candelabra and spoke with quiet certainty.

“But I will.”

---

Later that night, Lucien stood at the edge of the Shadow Court’s war chamber, overlooking the miniature model of the kingdom carved into stone. His closest council stood around him—Darius, Alaric the Spymaster, and Seraphine, a half-mage advisor who rarely spoke but saw everything.

“She is the key,” Lucien said, voice clipped. “If she is who I suspect, she may be the last surviving blood of House Aerendale.”

“And if she is?” Alaric asked.

Lucien met his eyes. “Then our enemies will come for her before we do.”

Alaric tilted his head. “And what do you plan to do, Your Majesty?”

Lucien’s fingers brushed the hilt of the ceremonial dagger at his belt. “Protect her. Use her. Maybe both.”

Seraphine’s violet eyes flashed. “You don’t yet know if she’s a threat... or a salvation.”

Lucien didn’t blink. “Then I’ll find out.”

Darius gave a short nod. “Do you want her brought in?”

Lucien shook his head. “No. Not yet. I want to see her with my own eyes. I want to know if the fire in her blood still burns.”

---

As the court dispersed, and the castle dimmed into the hours of deep night, Lucien stood alone in the war chamber. Thunder cracked outside. Rain lashed against the fortress walls.

He looked down at the map again—his kingdom stretching far and wide, its people unknowingly perched at the edge of a war centuries in the making.

Then he turned to the flickering flame in the torch beside him.

“The flame endures,” he whispered.

And for the first time in a long time, Lucien felt something stir in his chest.

Not fear.

Not fury.

But fate.