Hidden Wings

The true Loop

The damp, suffocating chill of the dungeons clung to my skin long after I pulled myself away from Ashton’s cell. Down there in the dark, the air had tasted like iron and stale ozone, heavy enough to weigh down my lungs. My heart hammered against my ribs like a frantic, trapped bird, the rhythm erratic and terrifying. I climbed the winding, subterranean stone steps of the eastern tower as fast as my trembling legs could carry me, desperate to escape the silence of the cells. But Ashton’s voice remained, drifting through my mind like dark, intoxicating smoke. They will drain you until there is nothing left. They want your power.

My head spun violently. It wasn’t just the residual sparks of the massive magic surge that still prickled and burned beneath my skin, making my veins feel like they were full of static electricity. It was the sudden, terrifying clarity of my situation. I had gone down into the dark stone belly of the eastern tower looking for a monster—a spy who had manipulated me at school—but instead, I had found the only person willing to look me in the eye and acknowledge the horror of my reality. Ashton was a captive, a changeling sent by the enemy and locked in heavy iron chains, yet his broken expression and desperate devotion felt infinitely safer than the gilded, perfect smiles of the royal court upstairs.

I needed to get back to my guest quarters before anyone noticed I was missing. The castle was an absolute maze of towering stone archways and heavy tapestries that seemed to whisper in the draft. Throwing the hood of my dark cloak over my head, I tried to make myself small, slipping through the vaulted corridors of the palace of Ivearona like a ghost. I didn’t know the rules of this place, and I didn’t know who was watching. But as I neared the grand royal study—the very place Ashton had steered me toward—the heavy, synchronized click of polished boots and a familiar, smooth voice made me freeze mid-stride.

Elaris. My brother. The boy who had spent years acting like a normal human teenager on Earth while harboring a royal secret. I melted into the deep shadows of the corridor, pressing my back flat against the cold stone wall just outside the heavy, cracked oak doors. I held my breath, my fingers digging into the masonry to anchor myself. The moment I touched the wall, a terrifying spark of heat flared in my palms. My elemental magic was reacting to my anxiety, completely bypassing my willpower. The stone grew uncomfortably warm, a faint green hum vibrating against my skin. I pulled my hands back into my cloak, terrified that the castle itself would betray my position.

Inside the room, the air felt thin, vibrating with the low, resonant hum of Elaris’s voice. He was at the mahogany desk, his knuckles white as he gripped a thick leather file. Beside him stood Shay. My breath hitched, a jagged sound that I barely managed to swallow. Shay. She was the one who had been a fixture in so many of my darkest, most confusing dreams—dreams that had only started bleeding into my waking life about a year and a half ago. Seeing her here—vibrant, solid, and breathing—instead of as a flickering specter in my own subconscious, made my stomach turn. Is she real? the thought whispered, frantic and cold. Or is this just another layer of the fever dream? She was the palace’s head of security, the shadow who had occasionally emerged from the periphery of my life to deflect a threat, never staying long enough to be understood.

“We had though it would have been best for Ivy to go to earth that they wouldn’t be able to find her. I wish I had known that there was still something on earth watching her after what happened to our parents.” Elaris sighed looking at some papers, “Shay you saw her last few lives you agree they were getting to her way to easy.”

“I do I watched as that fae used and killed her. I wish I had stopped her during the ball. Maybe then she would have.” Shay stopped her replied, her voice heavy with a weary, ancient grief that mirrored the exact tone of the voices in my dreams.

“Every reset drains Ivearona’s heart. If the core fractures, there won’t be enough life-force left to sustain the realm, or her.” Elaris sighs,

“We all wish we had stopped her but we didn’t so my parents thought that at the earth mundane world would hid her.”

“So the Earth assignment…” Shay paused, looking down at the files. “We were hiding her in plain sight for seventeen years because we couldn’t bear to lose her again.”

“Exactly,” Elaris replied, his frustration sharp enough to cut. “We thought we had bought her a full seventeen years of peace before her magic blossomed. Grandmother’s construct—the human shell—was designed to be a final, desperate firewall. It was meant to stop the rebirth cycles that had plagued her existence for centuries, trapping her in a single, stable identity. But the Unseelie King has been playing a long game. He placed a network of eyes across that human city, and Ashton was the crown jewel. Because of Ashton’s intervention, her magic has erupted a year ahead of schedule. She is recalibrated, and the planet cannot handle the shockwaves.”

Outside in the hall, my head swam. Seventeen years. They kept calling it a “normal life,” but the words felt hollow, a lie designed to soothe their own consciences. My mind flashed back to the sharp, sudden fragments of my “dreams”—the ones that had haunted me for the last eighteen months, pulling back the veil. I remembered a time when I was barely a toddler, a moment of profound, unnatural rebirth at the age of two where the cycles began. I hadn’t been a girl who had grown up on Earth; I was a relic who had been shoved into the shape of a girl, repeatedly pruned and suppressed to keep me “safe” for their benefit.

Before I could even process the crushing weight of the revelation, the heavy, royal rustle of silk and a commanding presence signaled the arrival of the matriarch. Queen Adele swept into the study, her royal aura radiating an effortless, terrifying authority that made the very air in the hallway turn to frost. I hadn’t caught the last few exchange between them but Adela pulled me back to their room.

“You’re all brooding,” Queen Adele cooed, her sharp gaze sweeping over the files Elaris and Shay had gathered. A wicked, sharp smile touched the Queen’s lips, devoid of any real warmth. “Shay, pack a bag. We are going on a trip to Earth. I know exactly which solitary Fae has been harboring the boy under our noses.”

The transition between realms happened so fast it made my stomach drop. Driven by a reckless, unyielding fury, I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t know how to cast a spell, but as the portal tore open in the study, I secretly latched onto the traveling wake of their magic, my unsuppressed, volatile power acting like a crude anchor. The crossing was a violent blur of folding shadows and pressure that nearly made me vomit.