AZALIYAH RISE OF THE FAE

COME HOME PRINCESS (PT.2) - ALL IN TRUTH

The words landed significantly harder than Azaliyah wanted to admit. She folded her arms tightly over her chest, the posture functioning far more as a protective shield than a confident stance now. She stared at the old woman, her violet wings giving a defensive, agitated twitch.

“So what? I’m supposed to just walk around completely pissed off forever just so my hands glow?”

“No,” Misha said quietly, her sharp eyes softening into something resembling ancient empathy. “You’re supposed to learn that there are vastly stronger emotions in this world than anger.”

Camron, sensing immediate danger in the heavy silence that followed, began slowly backing away toward the edge of the track, his heavy hooves dragging quietly through the dirt. “Yeah, on that note, I’m just going to go ahead and continue my mandatory laps before the deep emotional feelings start exploding across the yard too.”

Misha pointed her gnarled cane toward the outer track without even bothering to look in his direction. “That is officially the smartest thing you’ve muttered all morning, hybrid. Keep moving.”

Azaliyah hated how completely quiet she had gone inside her own head. Anger she knew. Anger was easy. It was clean, familiar, a reliable blade that was always waiting with its shoes on whenever life went sideways. Everything else in her chest was vastly messier. Raw grief made her feel entirely hollow, like a shell of a person. True fear made her feel disgustingly weak. And hope? Hope felt incredibly stupid and naive most days.

She looked down at her bare hands like they had betrayed her personally, her knuckles pale. “So what now?” she asked, her voice dropping into a flat, exhausted monotone. “You want me to just stand here and cry at a target and hope lightning shows up to save the day?”

Misha’s mouth twitched, a faint spark of amusement breaking through her stern expression. “If that actually happens, child, I will personally write it down in the archives for future lessons.”

The old woman walked with a slow, deliberate pace over to the weapons wall. She scanned the iron blades before pulling free a narrow, heavy wooden staff carved from seasoned ash. With a fluid flick of her wrist, she tossed it directly toward Azaliyah.

Reflex took over before conscious thought could stop it; Azaliyah’s hand shot out, catching the wood out of the air with a hollow *smack*.

“Now we involve your physical body,” Misha announced, her posture shifting as she stepped out into the open dirt. “Because right now, if your volatile magic fails you in the middle of a real skirmish, you essentially become highly decorative scenery.”

Camron barked a loud, rumbling laugh from across the yard, but he immediately regretted the outburst when Misha pointed her cane dead at his face without even turning her body.

“Keep laughing, dog boy, and I will happily decorate the ground with your giant torso.”

He cleared his throat, immediately resuming his jog in deeply offended silence.

Azaliyah spun the ash staff once, her grip awkward and unpracticed. The heavy wood swung wide, nearly clipping her own knee, and she glared down at it like the lumber itself had insulted her royal bloodline. “I don’t use sticks. I use blades.”

“Today you use what you are given.” Misha stepped into a balanced combat stance, pulling a second, matching staff from the wall. Her shoulders were completely loose, her eyes dangerously sharp. “Your enemies in the outer rifts will not pause politely while you search your soul for the correct feelings, girl.”

Before Azaliyah could even formulate a retort, Misha struck. The old woman moved fast enough to blur, the tip of her wooden staff cracking violently against the side of Azaliyah’s weapon. The sheer force of the impact jarred up Azaliyah’s forearms, leaving both of her hands completely numb.

“s**t!” Azaliyah stumbled backward, her boots skidding through the dirt. Another strike came immediately, sweeping incredibly low. She barely managed to jump over it, her wings flaring for balance. A third, calculated tap struck her left shoulder hard enough to sting through her leather armor.

“Language,” Misha chided calmly, her feet shifting fluidly in the dust. “And guard your left side. It’s wide open.”

Azaliyah reset her stance, breathing significantly harder now. Her pride was waking up mean, loud, and entirely uncooperative. “You hit incredibly old for someone this remarkably rude,” she spat, tightening her grip on the wood.

Misha smiled thinly, her gray eyes dancing. “And you talk incredibly royal for someone currently getting handled by a woman with lumber.” Then, she attacked again.

The next few minutes were a masterclass in public humiliation dressed up as ancestral training. Misha moved as if old age had simply forgotten to claim her joints, stepping effortlessly in and out of Azaliyah’s reach with irritating precision. The seasoned ash staff cracked repeatedly against wrists, thighs, ribs, and pride in equal measure. Every single time Azaliyah thought she had finally found the rhythm, Misha effortlessly changed the tempo. Every time she swung with pure, unbridled anger, Misha smoothly redirected the momentum. Every time she rushed forward blindly, she paid for it in bruises.

Fine dust clung to Azaliyah’s sweating skin, stings of perspiration blurred her vision, and somewhere behind her, Camron had completely stopped running his laps solely to lean against a post and thoroughly enjoy the entertainment.

“This is honestly painful to watch,” he called out loudly across the yard. “Mostly because she keeps missing every single open chance to hit back.”

Azaliyah spun toward the sound of his voice for half a second, which was exactly half a second too long. Misha hooked her ankle with the curved butt of her staff, sweeping her clean off balance. The maneuver sent the Fae princess crashing flat onto her back, hitting the hard earth with a solid *thud* that completely knocked the breath from her lungs.

A wave of suppressed laughter broke out among the watching village guards before they hurriedly tried to swallow it. Camron, however, made absolutely no attempt to hide his amusement. He bent completely over, hands resting on his knees, laughing so hard he looked like he had been physically healed by the experience.

Azaliyah stared blankly up at the sky, her chest heaving violently as she fought to draw oxygen. Slowly, she lifted one single, dirt-stained finger in his direction. “Keep... laughing,” she wheezed out, her throat dry. “I will literally kill you the second I'm done with cardio.”

Misha planted the end of her staff firmly into the dirt right beside Azaliyah’s head, looking down at her with an unyielding expression. “Good. Threats mean you still have oxygen left in your lungs.” She offered absolutely no hand to help the girl up. “Again. Stand.”

Azaliyah blinked up at her in disbelief. “I am literally on the ground.”

“An excellent, accurate observation.”

“I can literally taste the dirt.”

“Then stand up angry, child.”

Camron wiped a literal tear of laughter from his eye, shaking his head. “Honestly, old lady, I’m starting to like you significantly more than her.”

Azaliyah rolled to her feet with a guttural growl so entirely sincere that the ambient air around her bare hands gave a sudden, brief pulse of vibrant violet light. Misha noticed the fluctuation instantly, her eyes narrowing.

“There,” the elder commanded, her voice turning sharp as steel. “Right there. Now hit me with that exact feeling before your brain has time to ruin it.”

Azaliyah lunged forward before a single shred of doubt could catch up to her movements. The ash staff came around in a ferocious, sweeping horizontal arc, meant vastly less to land a clean blow and more to violently wipe that calm, knowing look completely off Misha’s face.

The old woman ducked beneath the whistling wood, tapped Azaliyah’s exposed wrist to redirect the energy, and pivoted cleanly behind her in one smooth, continuous motion. Azaliyah spun around with a curse already halfway out of her mouth, driving the heavy butt of the staff backward into the blind spot.

This time, Misha actually had to bring her weapon up to block it properly. Wood violently cracked against wood with a sharp, echoing snap that drew a few genuinely impressed murmurs from the watching village guards.

“Better,” Misha conceded, stepping back a pace to reset. “Still incredibly reckless and sloppy. But undeniably better.”

Azaliyah didn't let up. She advanced again, her breath rough and ragged, strands of damp hair sticking to her temples. Every single bruise on her body was loudly opposed to this plan, but she ignored the pain. She feinted high toward Misha’s shoulder, swung low toward her shins, and then shoved her weight forward with her shoulder when Misha moved to counter the movement. It was ugly, unrefined, and absolutely not how formal staff fighting was written in the text archives—but the raw physical pressure forced Misha back two full steps and nearly put the old woman in the dirt.

Camron straightened up where he stood against the railing, his smirk vanishing. “Well, damn. Look at the princess go.”

Misha regained her balance, her boots sliding through the soil, and smiled wider than she had all morning.

“There you are, girl.”

Azaliyah didn’t give her room to breathe. She drove forward with a heavy secondary strike, and as Misha brought her weapon up to meet it, a surge of pure frustration rushed hot and familiar through her chest.

*Crack.*

Violet light flashed violently down the entire length of the wooden staff, looking like trapped lightning racing through the grain of the ash wood. The magical impact exploded outward upon contact, a concussive pop that sent both women skidding apart across the yard and showering the packed earth in a cloud of splinters.

A heavy, absolute silence hit the yard first.

Then, Camron’s deep voice cut right through the quiet. “I’d just like everyone here to know that I saw that, and I was genuinely impressed before she inevitably ruins the moment somehow.”

Azaliyah stared down in utter shock at the smoking, shattered halves of the staff left in her palms, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “Did I... did I actually do that on purpose?”

“Yes,” Misha said, wincing slightly as she rubbed her left shoulder like the shockwave had actually managed to hurt her old bones. “And if you can manage to stop sounding completely surprised every single time you display real power, we may actually get somewhere with these lessons.”

Suddenly, the sharp, wailing blast of the horn from the eastern watchtower tore through the training yard. It was a long, low, and guttural tone that instantly froze every single conversation where it stood. The lingering laughter vanished. The watching villagers moved on pure survivor instinct—dropping their sharpening stones, grabbing their iron weapons, and abandoning their maintenance tools. They shifted from casual workers back into hardened survivors in the span of a single breath.

Camron crossed the yard immediately, his heavy hooves tearing up the dirt. He snatched up the iron sword he had mocked earlier from the rack, testing its weight with a much more respectful, lethal expression. “That specific tone doesn’t sound particularly friendly,” he muttered, his eyes locking onto the village gates.

Misha’s face hardened into something colder and more terrifying than either of them had witnessed yet. “No,” she said, her fingers gripping the handle of her cane until her knuckles turned white. “That means we have formal company.”

Azaliyah tossed the broken halves of her staff into the dirt and followed closely as Misha strode out of the yard toward the front gates. Guards rushed past them in a frantic blur, fastening their leather armor, loading heavy crossbows, and clearing the main path. The entire village moved like this was a specific breed of danger they recognized all too well.

“Is it the raiders back for a second round?” Azaliyah asked, her wings flaring tight.

“I would vastly prefer the raiders,” Misha replied without slowing her pace.

They reached the heavy timber gates just as a scout stumbled through the opening, dark blood streaked down his leather sleeve, his chest heaving violently. He dropped heavily to one knee in the dirt before the elder.

“Banner sighted on the ridge,” the scout gasped out, fighting for breath. “It’s the Silver Thorn. Hand-painted on black silk.”

Misha went completely still, her breathing pausing.

Azaliyah caught the reaction immediately, her suspicion flaring. “Should I know what that means? What is the Silver Thorn?”

Misha’s jaw tightened into a rigid line. “It means one of the old, high Fae houses has finally come calling on our valley.”

Camron glanced between the two women, his dark eyes narrowing as he adjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword. “And judging by the sudden look on everybody’s face... they’re clearly not here to borrow sugar.”

Misha’s sharp eyes slid slowly to Azaliyah, looking incredibly dark and entirely unreadable now. “No,” she said quietly. “They are here because someone in the outer territories has finally learned that the lost Starfall princess is alive.”

Azaliyah slowed her pace for half a step, the heavy words catching her harder than any physical strike in the training yard had. “Wait,” she said, looking from Misha to the bleeding scout and back again, her voice echoing. “People... people actually thought I was dead?”

The question came out significantly sharper than she intended, but a storm of pure confusion was already climbing fast behind her eyes. “How the f**k would anyone think that? I was right there in my home village this whole time. Hidden, yeah, ignored by the council, definitely... but I was entirely alive.”

Misha gave her a long, slow look—the specific kind of look adults utilize when they are calculating exactly how much brutal truth a young person can handle in one sitting. Around them, the village guards continued aggressively fortifying the heavy timber gates, but the entire world felt narrowed down to the small space between them.

“Because isolation is a significantly cleaner story for the public than political imprisonment, child,” Misha said at last, her voice a low murmur. “Because deliberate neglect sounds far uglier than a clean tragedy. Because when grand rulers fall, those who profit from the vacuum will always rewrite exactly what happened to the lineage.”

Azaliyah’s face hardened into stone, though a deep, painful uncertainty still flickered underneath her violet eyes. “My village... the council elders never told me a single word of that.”

“Of course they didn’t,” Misha replied flatly. “You were vastly easier to control and maintain as a forgotten, broken girl than as the living, breathing daughter of the true King and Queen of the Fae Realm.”

Camron’s expression shifted, his usual wall of protective sarcasm completely dropping away for once as he glanced down at her. Misha stepped closer into their space, her voice lowering until it was meant solely for their ears.

“Your parents were not merely loved by the people, Azaliyah. They were feared, deeply respected, argued over, admired, and blamed in equal measure by the high courts. They spoke openly of uniting the fractured houses that preferred division. They spoke of ending the ancient blood feuds that kept powerful noble families comfortable, and they wanted to share arcane strength with simple villages outside the noble walls. That kind of grand vision creates absolute loyalty in the common folk.” She paused, her eyes narrowing toward the ridge outside the gate. “It also creates incredibly powerful enemies.”

Azaliyah stood very still in the dirt, trying to fit this massive, terrifying truth beside the lonely, bitter scraps of childhood memories she had been given. “So... my entire existence only matters to these houses because of them? Because of who my parents were?”

“No,” Misha said firmly, her hand coming down onto Azaliyah's shoulder with a heavy weight. “Your existence matters because of you, girl. But their royal blood running through your veins is what makes every corrupt faction in this entire realm pay attention.”

Camron let out a slow, heavy breath, his ears flattening slightly. “Well,” he muttered, adjusting the leather wrapping on his sword hilt, “that is a terrible, highly stressful amount of pressure for someone who was literally losing fistfights to an old woman with a stick an hour ago.”

Azaliyah elbowed his ribs hard without even looking away from Misha.

She stared at the elder for a long, agonizing moment, then shook her head once like she was violently trying to clear ten different conflicting thoughts out of her skull at the exact same time.

“So when I first got to this valley,” Azaliyah said slowly, a sharp layer of suspicion creeping into her tone, “when you first came out of the hall with that bowl of broth and started talking to me like I was some tragic, lost child... you already knew exactly who I was, didn't you?”

Misha didn’t even bother pretending to hesitate or deny it. “Of course I did.” She adjusted her grip on her iron-topped cane, looking mildly offended that the fact even required an explanation. “That is precisely the reason I came out to greet you personally at the border. I felt the residual trace of your energy the exact moment your boots crossed into the valley's wards. Some bloodlines carry a physical presence with them, girl, and your Starfall blood announced itself to this land long before your mouth did.”

Camron snorted under his breath. “Well, that certainly explains why you looked so incredibly annoyed the exact second you laid eyes on her.”

Azaliyah shot the hybrid a glare sharp enough to file down rough wood, but Misha’s expression never wavered.

“You carry your mother’s face in quick flashes,” the elder continued, her voice softening just a fraction as she looked at Azaliyah’s features, “and you display your father’s exact chaotic energy whenever you get angry. Anyone who knew them well during the golden years would have recognized pieces of you almost immediately.”

Azaliyah’s jaw tightened until the bone ached. “Then why keep it a secret? If you knew, why not tell the rest of the village immediately?”