The halls of the palace echoed with a rare electricity an energy that only seen on the most sacred of days.
Silken banners of blood-red and gold were unfurled from the obsidian towers. Courtiers and warlords moved like shadows laced in fire, barking orders to tailors, blacksmiths, and magisters. The scent of polished steel and incense clung to the air. Musicians rehearsed in the marble gardens, their instruments tuning in quiet crescendos.
The Demon Kingdom was preparing for its next queen.
Velrith Vaelgor.
Daughter of flame and storm.
And in just days, she would take the crown.
It would happen on her eighteenth birthday.
The day her lineage passed not only blood and name but power.
The day loyalty will sworn to a queen.
Velrith stood half-armored in her ceremonial chamber, her tunic unlaced, her shoulders bare under the flickering lamplight. Her black-scaled pauldrons rested on a table beside her.
A full-length mirror reflected the transformation in her: no longer the girl bloodied in her father's training yard but a ruler forged in fire, her frame lean and honed, her posture proud, her eyes no longer seeking approval… but commanding it.
She had changed.
Not only in skill, but in presence.
There was grace to her now but it was the kind of grace that preceded a lightning strike.
Velrith's fingers trailed over the edge of the crown awaiting her on a silk-draped pedestal. Carved not from gold, but from ancient onyx veined with molten crimson living metal that pulsed faintly beneath her fingertips.
Heavy.
Unforgiving.
Last of its kind.
She didn't feel proud as she gazed upon it.
She felt… restless.
Her shoulders tightened. Her magic, ever-present now, shimmered faintly beneath her skin like a coiled serpent. The throne was being polished, the courts prepped, the nobles summoned but something inside her remained unfinished.
Incomplete.
Needing something she couldn't yet name.
By dusk, she could bear it no longer.
She left the palace silently.
No guards. No servants.
Just a black cloak, a hood, and a sword hidden beneath silk folds.
The outermost wards shimmered as she passed—protective illusions that kept the Demon Kingdom veiled from mortal eyes. They parted only for royalty, bending like reeds to her presence.
And beyond them…
Lay the Dark wood.
A forest feared by humans.
Alive.
Ancient.
And loved by her.
Its twisted trees loomed like old gods, their roots coiling like serpents across the earth. The ground breathed with forgotten names. The wind spoke in languages older than kingdoms.
This was not a forest for hymns.
But for Velrith, it was home.
Whenever the weight of court became too much, she came here. The scents of pine sap and soil soothed her. The silence grounded her.
But tonight, it was different.
There was something else in the air.
Something she had never felt before.
Not fear.
Not danger.
Something… calling.
A pull that vibrated in her bones.
A thread of energy that didn't belong to the forest.
It beckoned her deeper.
Tempting.
Strange.
Unfamiliar.
She began to run, jumping lightly between roots and over gnarled branches, her cloak trailing behind her like a phantom. The deeper she went, the closer the pull became until she felt it.
A pulse.
Like a second heartbeat inside her chest.
Not demonic.
Not divine.
Something… opposite. Something raw.
Powerful.
Hidden.
And very much alive.
Her breath caught.
The energy was faint, buried beneath layers of mortal stillness, but unmistakably ancient. It hummed in her fingertips, in the coil of her magic, in the ache behind her eyes.
Velira, her darker self, stirred within.
"Interesting," Velira whispered.
Velrith narrowed her eyes. "What is it?"
"A soul. But not just any. This one burns… like it was never meant to stay hidden. Like it was made to be found."
Velrith's steps slowed as the trees began to thin. The air shifted.
And then… she saw it.
Nestled at the edge of the Dark wood, beyond the reach of shadow, stood a human church.
Modest. Iron-spined. Walls of aged stone glowed faintly with candlelight from within.
Velrith's POV
I crouched low at the ridge, hidden behind a crooked ash tree whose bark had split like old scars. The shadows of the Dark wood clung to my cloak, wrapping around me like old friends. And yet for the first time I felt like a trespasser.
There it was.
Just as the forbidden texts described.
A human church.
Ancient in its simplicity. Stoic. Unyielding. Its iron bones glowed faintly with the flicker of candlelight from tall, narrow windows. No demons dared linger near such a place. We were warned, generation after generation, to never cross the edge where faith burned brightest.
But I had.
And I didn't know why.
I only knew that something had drawn me here.
A feeling that curled beneath my skin like a whisper I couldn't shake.
I cast an illusion around myself, barely more than mist to the air, just enough to keep hidden from the warding lines. And yet, my magic was restless. Tense. Humming like a bowstring ready to snap.
Because the pull wasn't from the church.
It was from inside it.
"There," Velira murmured within me, her voice as ever calm, cold, and watching.
My gaze followed the trail of magic that coiled around my spine and pointed like a compass needle toward a high window.
And I saw him.
A boy.
Kneeling.
Alone.
Lean and slight, a soft outline of light casting him in silhouette beneath the chapel's hanging candelabra. His head was bowed in quiet devotion.
But I wasn't drawn to his form.
I was drawn to his soul.
It flickered against my senses like a flame pressed beneath water. It wasn't demonic.
Not divine either. Something older.
Wilder. Unawaken.
My power stirred, rising unbidden from the depths of my chest.
It recognized him.
Or maybe it anticipated him.
"What is he?" I breathed, voice barely more than wind.
"Something rare," Velira said. "Something not meant to stay in chains."
I could feel it now.
Not just power but potential.
Ancient.
Timeless.
He was dormant, this boy, but the energy leaking from him was magnetic. Something about him made the threads of fate feel taut and trembling.
And it terrified me.
Because I'd spent years preparing to wear a crown.
To rule with blade and fire.
But in that moment, none of that felt as urgent as the question he had just become.
I shifted forward unconsciously, the impulse to get closer sharp and sudden.
I wanted to see his face.
I wanted to touch the truth with my own hands.
But I stopped myself.
The rules were clear. Our realm survives on secrecy, on tradition. We do not reveal ourselves to mortals. Not before they're ready.
Not before I'm ready.
And yet… I lingered.
Longer than I should have.
Longer than I ever had.
The boy stirred. He raised his head slightly.
I couldn't see his eyes, but in that brief, simple movement…
I felt something reach back.
Like a note struck on a string I didn't know I carried.
Not understanding.
Not recognition.
But something close.
"He doesn't know who he is yet," Velira whispered inside my skull, her voice curled like smoke. "But you will."
My breath caught.
I clenched my jaw, forcing my pulse to calm, forcing my fingers to release the tension coiling in them.
"I can't stay," I said.
Velira didn't argue.
"Not yet," she agreed. "But you will return. We both know it."
And I did.
Even as I turned, my cloak whispering through the grass like a passing storm.
Even as I stepped back into the embrace of the forest, letting the veil of our realm swallow me once more.
I knew I would come back.
The church faded behind me.
But the pull remained.
His presence remained.
And within me, a new curiosity bloomed. Quiet and vast.
Like a star waiting to fall.