Thorns of the Starlit Crown

Chapter 1 — The Fading Light

The stars were dying.

It was not sudden, nor loud, nor the kind of death mortals might see in fire or ruin. In the Starlit Court, the light simply dimmed as though someone had drawn a veil across the sky, one layer at a time.

Eirena stood upon the balcony of her mother’s palace and watched the constellations flicker. Each faint shimmer of starlight was a heartbeat of her realm, and each fading one was a silence that would never return.

Below her, the city of Varethyn pulsed like a living jewel: towers of crystal and glass, bridges woven from silver light, and the soft hum of enchantments keeping the air perfumed and the streets aglow. It was beautiful, as it had always been, but the beauty was beginning to rot. The light no longer reached the outer districts. The magic that sustained their world was dying, and the Queen refused to admit it.

The Queen, her mother Isolde of the Endless Crown.

Eirena’s hands tightened on the balcony rail until her knuckles paled. She had spent her life listening to courtiers whisper of her mother’s strength, her wisdom, her eternity. But strength had turned to obsession, and wisdom to denial. The Queen had not left her throne room in three years, and the realm had begun to wither in her shadow.

Behind her, footsteps clicked softly. “You’ll freeze out here,” said Alera, her handmaid, voice delicate as spun glass. “The night’s grown colder than it should be.”

Eirena didn’t turn. “It isn’t the night that’s colder. It’s the stars.”

Alera hesitated. “If Her Majesty hears you.”

“She already does,” Eirena murmured. “The whole palace has ears.”

Alera fell silent. The only sound was the distant hum of the Crown that endless, thrumming vibration that lived in the air, in their blood. The Starlit Crown, forged when the heavens were young, bound their world to its light. It fed the Queen, and through her, the entire Court. Every fae soul owed its spark to it.

And every fading star meant one more soul dimmed beyond saving.

Eirena turned at last. “Has she summoned me?”

“Yes, my lady,” Alera said, eyes downcast. “The Queen commands your presence at the First Bell.”

Eirena exhaled slowly. “Then let us not keep eternity waiting.”

The throne room of Varethyn had once been a place of awe. Now, it was suffocating. The silver fires that had burned eternal in its braziers sputtered, throwing uncertain shadows. The murals of constellations above had dimmed to gray. Yet at the room’s center, the throne itself still blazed a high seat woven from thorned silver, its every vine pulsing with starlight drawn from the dying heavens.

Upon it sat Queen Isolde, the last unbroken star of their world.

Her eyes were like frozen moons, her hair a spill of silver-white. She looked untouched by age, untouched by grief, untouched by anything at all. Around her, courtiers knelt in fearful reverence, their jeweled robes rustling like the wings of dying moths.

“Daughter,” the Queen said, her voice carrying through the hall like the tolling of a distant bell. “You watch the sky too often.”

Eirena bowed low. “Someone must, Majesty.”

The Queen’s lips twitched almost a smile, almost a sneer. “And what do you see there that you think I do not?”

“The end,” Eirena said softly.

A ripple went through the gathered courtiers. No one spoke to the Queen like that not since the wars of the Veil, not since the last rebellion had been silenced in fire.

Isolde rose slowly, her crown shimmering. It was made of living thorns vines of pure light, each tipped with a faint blue flame. The air trembled as she moved. “You speak of endings, child, as if you understand eternity. The stars fade because they obey my will. They dim so that their light might be reborn, purified.”

Eirena’s voice stayed steady, though her pulse thundered. “You say they are reborn, but nothing returns. The skies darken, the lands grow cold, and the fae who serve us grow weak. You’re bleeding the realm dry.”

Gasps filled the chamber.

Isolde’s eyes hardened. “Mind your tongue.”

“The people whisper in the streets,” Eirena pressed on. “They say the Crown drinks their magic. That it feeds on the dying light. Tell me it isn’t true.”

“Would you call your mother a liar?”

“I would call her blind,” Eirena said.

Silence fell like a blade. Even the braziers seemed to shrink from the words.

Isolde descended the steps of her throne, her gown whispering like smoke. When she reached her daughter, she cupped Eirena’s face in one hand. Her fingers were cold, colder than any mortal winter.

“You are my blood,” the Queen said softly. “But you forget your place. The Crown sustains us. Without it, this world collapses. You think you see decay, but what you witness is transformation.”

Eirena met her gaze. “And what will remain after everything is transformed into nothing?”

Something dark flickered behind the Queen’s eyes not anger, but sorrow buried so deep it had turned to stone. “Leave me,” she whispered. “Before I make your defiance part of the Crown’s thorns.”

Eirena bowed once more, but her heart ached. “Then I’ll leave, Mother. But when the light dies completely, remember I tried to warn you.”

She left the throne room to the murmurs of the courtiers, their voices full of awe and fear. Some pitied her; others admired her courage in secret. But courage was a poor weapon in the Starlit Court. It only drew blood faster.

As she strode through the halls, her reflection followed her in every mirrored wall — a pale figure with silver eyes, the faint glow of starlight still woven into her veins. The sight made her feel like a ghost in her own home.

Alera met her outside the doors. “My lady?”

“She will not listen,” Eirena said, her tone brittle. “She’s convinced the darkness is her creation.”

“What will you do?”

Eirena paused. “Find the truth myself. If the Crown feeds on the realm, then it can be unbound. Somewhere in the archives, there must be records of how it was forged.”

Alera’s eyes widened. “That’s forbidden knowledge.”

“Then it’s worth finding.”

The Hall of Memories lay deep beneath the palace an ancient archive carved into the bones of a fallen star. Few dared enter it now. The air there was heavy, thick with the residue of forgotten magic. When Eirena stepped inside, her lantern’s flame flickered, though no wind stirred.

She passed rows of crystal shelves, each holding scrolls that glowed faintly with recorded memory. Histories whispered as she walked, voices of kings and scholars and dreamers long gone. But it was one voice that drew her attention not a whisper, but a heartbeat.

A faint rhythm echoed from the farthest chamber, where an old seal of the Crown’s sigil glowed faintly on the wall. Eirena pressed her palm against it. The sigil pulsed once, recognizing the blood of its Queen, then dissolved into dust.

Inside lay a small chamber, empty except for a stone pedestal and an orb of starlight hovering above it. Within the orb shimmered images flashes of battle, of fire, of the first Queen kneeling beneath a bleeding sky. Eirena reached out, and the vision enveloped her.

She saw the birth of the Crown forged not from divine will, but from sacrifice. The first Queen had bound her heart to the stars, sealing her mortality away to keep their light burning. But the cost had been great. The Crown was not a gift; it was a prison. It fed on the lifeforce of those who bore it, and in turn, on the realm itself.

Eirena gasped, stumbling back. The light snapped shut.

Her mother wasn’t preserving the stars. She was consuming them.

A sound echoed behind her boots striking stone. She turned sharply. A figure stood at the doorway, cloaked in shadow. A mortal, by his scent and his heartbeat steady, alive.

“How did you get in here?” she demanded.

The man bowed slightly. “Through the gate you forgot to seal. You’re not the only one seeking the truth about the Crown.”

His voice carried a strange mix of warmth and weariness. His hair was dark, his clothes worn not fae silk, but mortal leather, dusted with travel. His eyes, though human, glowed faintly gold, as if they’d seen too much light to remain untouched.

“I am Kael, once of the Ashwood Plains,” he said. “Your Queen burned my home.”