Chapter 2 — The Mortal Intruder
1500 Words
The Queen’s palace was not meant for mortals.
Its corridors bent in impossible ways, their arches rippling like waves of glass. Every step a mortal took here pressed against unseen boundaries — old enchantments that tested blood and will. Kael felt them immediately: the cold fingers of starlight brushing against his skin, tasting him, rejecting him.
Eirena walked ahead of him, her pace swift, her silver robes whispering like water. “Keep close. The wards won’t harm you if you stay within my shadow.”
“That’s comforting,” Kael muttered, ducking beneath an arch that shimmered like liquid moonlight. “I’ll be sure not to wander off and dissolve.”
She cast him a look over her shoulder not quite amusement, not quite irritation. “You mock what you don’t understand.”
“I mock what tries to eat me alive,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
Despite herself, a small smile ghosted her lips. “Mortals,” she murmured. “Always jesting in the face of danger.”
“Because if we stop joking, we start screaming,” he said quietly.
Something in his tone made her glance back again truly look at him this time. Beneath the worn leather and travel-stained cloak was a man who had seen too much ruin to be frightened by palaces of light. His hands bore scars not of battle alone, but of survival raw, calloused reminders of the mortal world’s decay.
“You said the Queen’s tithes burned your home,” she said. “What did you mean?”
He hesitated. “The Crown demands offerings of life from our world. Energy, crops, sometimes even people. We thought it was myth until the sky started bleeding light. My village stood beneath one of the rifts. When her magic swept through, it took everything. I was the only one who crawled out.”
Eirena’s steps slowed. “You came through the Veil alone?”
“I followed the light.” His gaze lifted to the crystal ceiling. “I thought if I found where it led, I could end it.”
She studied him for a long moment. “Then perhaps fate has a sense of irony. You sought the source of your world’s suffering and found the Queen’s daughter instead.”
He gave a grim chuckle. “Not exactly how I planned it.”
They reached a narrow corridor lined with mirror-glass pillars. The air here hummed louder, pulsing with the heartbeat of the Crown itself. Through the glass walls, Eirena could see the faint outline of the throne chamber far above, where her mother’s power still burned bright.
“We can’t linger,” she said. “If the Crown senses you, it will call the sentinels.”
“Sentinels?”
She didn’t answer. The word itself was warning enough.
At the corridor’s end lay a hidden door no larger than a seam in the crystal. Eirena placed her hand against it, whispering an old phrase in the tongue of the first stars. The seam glowed and unfolded into a spiral staircase that descended into the palace’s underworks.
Kael hesitated. “You’re sure this is safe?”
“Nothing in this palace is safe,” she said. “But this path is forgotten.”
He followed her down. The stairs were carved into the bones of the old realm darker, rougher, untouched by the Queen’s new magic. Here, the air smelled of dust and earth instead of starlight. It was the first breath of reality Kael had felt since crossing into this world.
At the bottom, the stairs opened into a cavern lit by faint blue crystals. Ancient runes glowed along the walls, and a pool of still water reflected the dim light like a mirror.
“This was once the Hall of Reflection,” Eirena said. “Where the first fae bound their destinies to the stars. It’s been sealed for centuries.”
Kael crouched by the pool, studying his reflection. The water shimmered oddly, distorting his face. “Why bring me here?”
“Because the wards above won’t reach this deep. You’ll be hidden, for a time.”
He looked up. “And what will you do?”
“Find a way to sever the Crown’s hold,” she said. “I’ve seen enough to know it must be undone.”
Kael rose slowly. “You’d betray your mother?”
Her jaw tightened. “I’d save what’s left of our world and yours.”
He met her gaze. “Then we’re already bound by the same purpose.”
Before she could answer, the air above them shimmered a ripple of energy like the surface of disturbed water. Eirena stiffened. “Too late. The Crown has found you.”
From the shadows of the staircase, three shapes emerged tall, armored, their faces hidden behind masks of pale silver. The Sentinels of the Thorn Court. They were extensions of the Queen’s will, silent and merciless.
Kael reached instinctively for the dagger at his belt steel darkened by age, forged in mortal fire. The nearest Sentinel tilted its head, as if curious.
Eirena stepped between them. “He is under my protection!”
The lead Sentinel’s voice was like wind through thorns. “The Queen’s decree forbids mortal presence within her halls. Step aside, Princess.”
“I command you in her blood’s name,” Eirena said. “Stand down.”
The Sentinel paused. “Your blood is weakened by doubt. The Queen’s will is stronger.”
It raised its blade. Eirena’s heart surged with fury and something else. The same power that had flared in the archives now rippled beneath her skin, answering her defiance. She lifted her hand, and light burst from her palm, forming a barrier of pure starlight between them.
The impact cracked the air. The Sentinel’s blade struck the shield and sent ripples of light spiraling across the cavern. Kael felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. He had seen magic before cruel, beautiful, deadly but nothing like this. Eirena’s power wasn’t the cold radiance of her mother’s court; it was alive, wild, threaded with pain and purpose.
She shouted over the roar. “Go!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Then fight!” she snapped.
The second Sentinel lunged. Kael ducked beneath its swing and drove his dagger upward. The blade met resistance not flesh, but something harder, like glass. Sparks flew as mortal steel met fae armor. The Sentinel staggered but did not fall.
“Your weapons are useless,” Eirena warned.
“Then maybe they just need help!” he growled.
He thrust the dagger toward her shield. For a heartbeat, the mortal metal brushed her magic and the two forces reacted like storm and flame. The blade erupted in pale fire. Kael felt his arm go numb, but he didn’t hesitate. He turned and plunged the burning dagger into the Sentinel’s chest.
This time, the armor cracked. Light poured from the wound like liquid fire, and the creature fell, dissolving into smoke.
Eirena stared. “How did you?”
“I don’t know,” he panted. “Maybe your magic likes me.”
“Unlikely,” she said, but her voice wavered with astonishment.
The last Sentinel advanced, slower, wary. Eirena and Kael moved together without speaking. She raised her hand, and he raised his blade. Her light wrapped around the weapon like a living flame. When they struck, it was not as fae and mortal but as something new, a union of magic and matter that the Crown had never foreseen.
The Sentinel shattered. Fragments of silver rained to the floor, fading into dust.
When silence returned, both of them were breathing hard. The air smelled of ozone and burned starlight.
Kael wiped his dagger on his sleeve. “So. That’s what your mother sends as messengers?”
“She’ll send worse now,” Eirena said grimly. “The Crown felt what we just did. It won’t understand, it will fear it.”
He sheathed the dagger. “Then we need to move before it sends more.”
She nodded, though her gaze lingered on him. “That blade… when it touched my light, it didn’t break. No mortal weapon should have survived that.”
Kael looked down at it. The steel still glowed faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat. “It was forged from the ashes of a fallen star. A relic from before your Queen’s time.”
Her eyes widened. “Then it’s tied to the same magic as the Crown.”
“Maybe that’s why it worked,” he said. “Maybe that’s why we work.”
The words hung between them heavier than the silence that followed.
Eirena turned away first. “We can’t stay here. The underpaths lead beyond the city walls. Once we cross the Veil’s edge, the Queen’s reach weakens.”
“And after that?”
She hesitated. “There’s a sanctuary, a place where the light does not touch.”
- Writer
