Chapter 2: Princess of a Forgotten Prophecy
1152 Words
The sun was just beginning to rise when Aurelia crested the hill overlooking the kingdom she’d abandoned.
Elarion—city of white spires and crystal gates—glimmered in the distance, wrapped in morning mist. The breeze carried with it a faint melody, one she had heard her entire life, like the world itself was always singing.
For the first time, the song no longer felt like a lullaby.
It felt like a warning.
---
The road beyond the capital was rough and overgrown. Her slippers tore by midday, and she bartered her cloak in the next village for boots and a pack. Her royal ring, cleverly sewn into her hem, bought her enough coin to pass as a traveling bard.
She called herself Lyra now—a name pulled from an old lullaby her mother used to hum.
And though her voice still held power, she sang sparingly, afraid of what it might draw.
Aurelia hadn’t escaped to be found.
---
Two nights later, she arrived in Vareth Hollow, a frontier town pressed against the edge of the known world. Rumor had it that magic here went feral, untouched by the rules of kings or scholars.
Perfect.
She found lodging in a smoky tavern run by a former knight and paid for a week in songs. By her second performance, the locals loved her. Not for her voice, but for the way she sang like she meant it.
Like a person, not a prophecy.
But Vareth Hollow was full of secrets—and she wasn’t the only one hiding.
---
One evening, after a particularly haunting rendition of a tune she’d dreamed the night before, a cloaked stranger approached her table.
“You’re not from around here,” he said.
She looked up. Young. Sharp eyes. Lean build. There was a faint crackle of magic around his hands, disguised but not gone.
“I could say the same,” she replied.
“You sing like a Seer,” he continued. “But your soul is… wrong.”
Aurelia stiffened.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve crossed two lives,” he said, tapping a rune-stone on the table. It glowed faintly near her. “You were someone else, once. Somewhere else.”
She stood, heart pounding.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” he whispered.
The tavern around them flickered. For a moment, Aurelia saw not wood and firelight, but marble columns and ghostly chains.
The illusion shattered. She backed away.
“What do you want?”
The man removed his hood.
He was barely older than her—his hair silver, not with age, but with magic. His eyes glowed faint blue.
“I’m Talon,” he said. “And if I’m right, you’re not just some runaway princess.”
He leaned forward.
“You’re the key to stopping the curse.”
---
They sat in silence in the frost-lit woods outside the village.
Aurelia, still shaken, finally asked, “What curse?”
Talon explained:
Centuries ago, a queen named Eris ruled Elarion. Beloved by her people, she was also feared—because she sang in a voice that made the skies weep and the seas bow. But her songs began to change. Grow darker. Her grief, it was said, infected the land.
Then came the curse.
A song of sorrow so powerful it splintered reality.
Kingdoms fell. Forests turned to glass. Cities were swallowed by the sea.
Eris vanished. Some say she died. Others say she became part of the curse itself—bound to the melody that broke the world.
Since then, the curse has never truly ended. Every few generations, it resurfaces—places decay without reason, people vanish, songs lose their power.
The royal family of Elarion declared themselves keepers of balance, promising to contain it.
But Talon believed they were lying.
“They don’t want to end it,” he said. “They want to control it.”
“And what does this have to do with me?” Aurelia asked.
“You sang a note I’ve only read about in ancient scripts,” Talon said. “A note of return. Of resurrection.”
He met her gaze.
“You’re her vessel, Aurelia. The queen’s second chance.”
---
Aurelia ran.
She didn’t look back. Didn’t stop for breath. Her feet hit stone and soil and water and none of it mattered.
Her? A vessel for a cursed queen?
Impossible.
She had been Hana. A singer. A girl with ambition, a dream, and a tragic end.
And now she was Aurelia. A runaway, yes—but still herself.
Wasn’t she?
She collapsed beneath a weeping willow by a silver stream and screamed into the night.
Then—music.
A soft, sad melody on the wind.
It came not from the trees or the stream, but from within her.
She pressed her hands to her chest.
The queen’s voice was inside her.
Sleeping.
Waiting.
---
The next morning, she returned to the tavern.
Talon was still there.
“I’m not a vessel,” she said coldly.
He didn’t argue.
“But I am going to end the curse,” she added. “Not for your war. Not for the royal family’s lies.”
She met his eyes.
“I’ll do it for the people who sing without power. Who live in fear. Who deserve truth.”
Talon smiled faintly. “Then you’ll need more than me.”
“I know.”
Aurelia stood tall.
“I’m gathering a crew.”
---
And so it began.
They posted notices in back-alley inns and enchanted forests. They followed legends and tracked cursed objects. They searched for others who had been scarred by the queen’s lingering magic.
And slowly, they came.
First was Kael, the cursed thief from her youth—still bound by truth, now hunted by warlocks. He joined without hesitation.
Next came Nyra, a warrior banished for refusing to execute a child touched by song-magic. She wielded a blade that wept light.
Then Thistle, a fox spirit with a grin too wide and secrets too deep. He claimed to know the queen’s last lullaby—but only in riddles.
Lastly, they found Ashen, a dragon who had forgotten his name and purpose, chained by a melody only Aurelia could unlock.
Each of them broken.
Each of them burned by the same flame.
Each of them ready to face the curse.
Together, they became something new.
Not royalty. Not rebels.
But a song reborn.
---
In the ruins of an ancient temple, under a sky full of falling stars, Aurelia raised her voice and sang a new song.
Not one of prophecy.
Not one of despair.
But of defiance.
And the curse stirred.
Far away, in a chamber deep beneath the palace of Elarion, a shadow opened her eyes.
The Queen Without a Throne had awoken.
---
End of Chapter 2
- Writer
