Creak— creak — creak.
The sound of the rocking chair reverberated through the quiet chamber, filling the stillness with a slow, persistent rhythm. The delicate curtains swayed faintly, mirroring the motion of the lone figure rocking back and forth. Thoughts pulsed rapidly through her mind—restless,heavy.
Then it hit her
A sensation stirred in the pit of her stomach, rising slowly like a warning. A wave of foreboding washed over her.
She recognized it immediately.
Her long lashes trembled as she exhaled a shaky breath from her pale, thin lips.
'Fear'
The word whispered through her mind like an unwelcome echo—a feeling that had been tucked away for most of her life yet she was all too familiar with.
"Is there no other way?" she thought, her worry carving deeper lines into her forehead.
Creak.....creak...creak...
The rocking chair released one final groan as it came to an abrupt halt.
Her lashes lifted slowly, unveiling striking blue-grey irises. Enchanting,yet haunting in depth—shallow and dim, almost lifeless.They resembled a candle abandoned in the wind, flickering, struggling to burn but refusing to die.
Her beauty was just something,it was just there.
A proud, high-bridged, pointed nose sat above very pale pink, thin lips. Sharp chin and defined jawlines framed her oval face, enhancing a look that was utterly an one of a kind beauty.
Isabelle rose from her seat.
With each step she took, the gentle jingle of her bangles sang softly into the quiet room. She made her way toward the work table, scattered with documents and half-finished thoughts. She pulled out the chair and sat, her focus shifting toward the open drawer before her. She couldn't remember how remember how many times the drawer had been opened this past week neither could she remember how long it lay open.
Inside lay a small box,emitting a peculiar energy—quiet, but dominant.
She reached in carefully, lifting it out with steady hands, then placed it onto the table.
Her long, delicate fingers brushed across its surface, wiping away specks of dust. As her thumb swept over the lid, an elegant impression emerged: the slender stem of a flower, etched beautifully into the wood.
Her blue-grey irises softened as she caressed the surface of the box, tracing the flower pattern gently with her fingertips. She knew exactly whose taste it was. A memory, long tucked away, stirred within her.
FLASHBACK
"Ellie, are you curious? Come, look at this," her father's voice had been boisterous,warm but playful and brimming with life.
"What is that,it's beautiful "younger her asked curiously,eyes wide with wonder.
"This is something many yearn for, but can never have. He'd said lifting the box with pride."Who knew I would be so lucky? No… we would be so lucky. So, we must cherish it properly..."
".....It can become Christencia's ray of light in dark times. This is a boon," he had continued.
" A boon?" She echoed
" Yes." His smile turned softer"After all, he owes me a life-saving grace. But we use it only when we run out of options, okay?"
Then leaning down with confidence and a grin:
"But I doubt that day will ever come."
BACK TO PRESENT
Isabelle's eyes glistened, but never spilled. The tears refused to fall. Her stubbornness rose like a shield. She had not broken then. She would not break now. Not ever.
A soft, hollow chuckle escaped her—sad, brittle, disbelieving.
"Papa," she whispered into the silent air, raising her head, "did you doubt we would never run out of options… or that we would one day have to rely on this?"
She exhaled sharply, brushing the thought away
"Ha. Isabelle scoffs," she murmured again—half at the memory, half at herself.
She slid the subtle bangle from her wrist and twisted it. It reshaped obediently beneath her fingers—bending into a hook, then into a dual-pin tool.
If there was one thing she was good at, it was weapons. Twisting. Reshaping. Creating beauty out of something small.
The pin met the lock.
Slowly, she inserted it. Right. Left and a Slight push inward.
Click.
The sound echoed softly through the quiet room. The box yielded.
Inside lay a parchment scroll, glowing faintly with a silvery-blue hue. Blank—but dense with mana, rich with dormant magical energy.
Isabelle cleared a space on the cluttered table, sweeping the scattered documents aside before placing the scroll carefully onto the wood.
She leaned back into the chair and closed her eyes, trying to gather her thoughts. Her right hand drifted instinctively to the gold band on her opposite wrist. It had never failed her before. It hummed gently, steadying the unnamed ache in her heart.
A breath slipped out of her deep, slow, unintended. She hadn't realized she'd been holding it in.
She ground the ink against the ink stone and dipped a feather brush into it. Each stroke she painted onto the scroll shimmered faintly, the silvery hue pulsing softly with every letter formed. The mana thickened. The air stilled further.
At the final stroke, the scroll faded to completely.
A wave of exhaustion washed over her. Sudden. Strange. Heavy.
She placed the brush down gently, her eyelids drooping as the cost of magic claimed its due.
The wind outside shifted. Night deepened.
Her whisper followed it—soft, fragile, desperate:
"Are you there? Can you hear me?...."
"....If you are… please save my Christencia...."
".....I'm begging you."
She prayed—hoping, forcing herself to believe before surrendering at last to the exhaustion pulling her under.
UnknownPOV 1:
Specks of silvery light shimmered like scattered stars, carried gently by the wind through open skies and dimmed streets. They slipped through cracks, drifted along empty alleyways, and swirled like cosmic dust—each particle humming with the echo of a desperate whispers
In a room devoured by shadows, a lone figure stood by the tall window. Heavy drapes framed him like curtains to an untold secret, obscuring every trace of his features,only his dark silhouette remained visible in the night.
He lifted his hands, the familiar tremor coursing through him was ancient. As his arms extended beyond the window, the air shifted. A faint silver glow gathered, blooming toward his fingertips like summoned starlight. The luminous strands coiled and danced around him, swirling at the edges of his skin, twining through the gaps between his fingers.
The plea-desperate,frantic reached his ears at last. Not spoken, but delivered through light, wind, and fate.
"By the thread of light and grace, I bind your path to safety.
Let no shadow touch you. Let none find you.
Crescentia, my charge, my glory."
The voice, though low, resonated like a fervent prayer:
"May the moon and stars hear me,
May the sun and wind know listen to my plea.
May day and night show mercy.
May the seen and unseen heed my cry—
Guard us through the storms,
Lest we all fall to ruin… lest we perish."
The silver shimmer at his hands flared brighter, remembering his vow,and answering to the pact it once promised.
"Finally,it's time"
Somewhere, far beyond sight, the universe listened
Far from the city's warmth, where winter reigned in eternal frost, a hidden cave waited beneath layers of snow and jagged ice. Within, a crystal coffin sat upon a frozen dais, glimmering in pale light that seeped through the icy roof. The air was sharp with cold, each breath visible like smoke, carrying a low hum that seemed alive.
Then, a silvery hue drifted into the cave. It flowed through cracks in the ice, carried by whispers. The shimmer swirled and coiled around the crystal coffin, brushing over the frozen surface like a breath of starlight.
Inside, a man lay motionless. On his forehead sat proudly an ingot of flame, regal and commanding,holding the weight of kingdoms. Even through the ice, his presence radiated alarming danger, a quiet dominance that made the shadows around him recoil.
The ice quivered. Tiny fissures spiderwebbed outward. The silvery hue thickened, wrapping him in strands of light. His hair, silvery-white like frozen fire, fanned around him as though the cave itself had exhaled. Then his eyes opened,vivid purple, glowing like embers in the frost.
The cave held its breath. The silver strands flowed,the man stirred, sensing the power that had traveled thousands, the call,wind, and prayer. With a sudden whoosh, he rose, and the crystal coffin shattered quietly beneath him, releasing frost-tipped shards that floated like falling stars.
Aila--The North:
Somewhere else, another room lay dark and still. A man sat in a high-backed rocking chair, fingers tapping the armrest in a steady rhythm: tap… tap… tap… tap… tap. His red hair was plain in style, yet the aura around him carried an unspoken tension, taut and restrained.The chair creaked as it rocked slightly under him.
He turned his gaze to the window, where the pale moon cast silver streaks across the floor. Shadows clung to the corners of the room, but they did nothing to hide the way his jaw tightened, the subtle flare of his nostrils. Feeling the subtle tremors:
"I hope this peace lasts," he murmured, low, almost swallowed by the darkness as his lips curled neither to a smile nor to a sneer. Yet even in the quiet, his words seemed to linger, brushing against the edges of the night.
Aila--The south:
The pungent stench of blood was nauseating but it didn't seem to bother the man slumped over the chair and table. Beside him, another figure lay battered,bloodied and barely clinging to life, shivering as his chest rose and fell in ragged, uneven breaths.
The slumped man was young, dressed in black. He leaned his head on his left hand, the other gripping a bloodied sword.
Feeling the slight tremor, He opened his eyes groggily, still heavy with sleep, struggling to keep them open.
"Finally," he murmured, voice thick with lethargy, "it won't be boring anymore."
Without bothering to open his eyes which had now closed,he swung the sword. Blood spurted across the floor, and the struggling figure's irregular breathing stilled.
"Noisy," he muttered, almost lazily, using his bloodied hands to brush away the hair falling over his face,he dozed off again.
Aila--The East:
In a grand office,it's dark wood polished to a faint gleam under the candlelight. Eastern leaned over towering piles of documents. Dark circles traced his eyes as he felt a pounding headache setting in. He sighs.
He suddenly looked up,relief washing through him as he felt a a pulsation.
"Thank heavens you're back..."Eastern shouts as he quickly got up energized and dashes out of the room,his laughter reverberating"...I almost worked myself to death".
Aila--THE BLACK FORTRESS:
Standing on the tall wall,Ishekirn looked down at the city,his onyx black hair swaying with the winds.
" Aila..My dearest Aila, I'm back"he throws his head back in laughter as his vivid purple eyes twinkled,a wicked smirk creeping onto his lips.
" Hmmm.....who do you think would find me first, Little Lei?,umm No. Eastie??hmmm... possible or my dearest Rael?of course it would be him,tsk he must have missed me alot...I mean,who wouldn't"he chuckles to himself,his eyes blazing with madness.
Swish
He rushes into the city.
Three months later
Christencia:
In the courtroom,heavy silence reigned,even a pin drop would be hear as everyone tried to process what they just heard.
"A marriage proposal?" Isabelle says,her voice low,daring the man standing before her to repeat himself
"Yes milady" The man affirms without flinching,unfazed by the threat in her voice. Though he was impressed.
His answer seemed to not have helped matters as a wave of murmur followed as the ministers whispered to each other,some of them visibly showing their outrage on the face.
"How dare...?"Felix starts taking a step forward but is immediately stopped by Isabelle's raised hand.
Isabelle sits up,the silver white veil that covered half her face didn't mask her commanding aura at all, straightening her back,the sleeves of her gown shift with her translucent champagne-gold fabric, draped like a royal mantle, edges threaded with fine gold embroidery shaped like anvil-forged vines. The bodice beneath is a structured steel-boned corset overlaid with gold leaf patterns, glinting softly like polished metal, cinched tightly at the waist before flowing into sheer layered skirts split by a forward slit, framed in subtle metallic details. At her neck rests a pendant of pearls and clear gemstones set in forged gold, sitting like armor shaped for a queen. A crown-tiara of interlocking blade-like points holds her ginger waves in place, and at her feet, gold-strapped sandals with delicate ankle filigree ground her firmly, a ruler who embodies beauty, war, and law in equal measure. Her blue grey eyes hardened as her eyes showed a smile which was not a smile.
"Leave my courtroom" she says cauing the entire room to go dead silent.
"What!?" Declan Moore couldn't believe his ears
"If you're going to stand in my courtroom,right beneath my throne,in my kingdom and yet you can't address me properly,leave my courtroom NOW" Isabelle says word by word looking him dead in the eye.
"Tsk"
"Ha"
A hump and a chuckle is heard. The hump came from Felix while Minister Clien chuckled.They we're looking at Isabelle with pride while the other ministers had mixed expression on their faces.
They all held their breath as a stare down challenge went on between Declan Moore and their Queen.
Interesting
Declan Moore gave in as he drops his gaze."My apologies Queen Isabelle...." he gives a deep bow.Hearing his flat tone Felix frown deepens as he he was clearly not satisfied by the Man's fake apologetic attitude,his expression mirrored Minister Clien's expression but the older man did a better job at controlling his expressions.
Isabelle leans back on her throne.
The silence drags in for a while before she lifts her eyelashes and looks and the man still standing in front of her.
"A marriage proposal? To the king of Aila?.." Isabelle repeats to be sure she heard him properly.
Seeing him nod in affirmation,"..but we have no eligible girl worthy of his majesty, Christencia has no princess neither are the noble daughters who are of marriageable age worthy of him. The rest are unmarried or underage. Is there no other way" Isabelle says as she moves her right hand which was on the handrest of her throne to her laps so that she would feel the cold object in her wrist that always seemed to calm her. Her senses tingled,as a feeling came upon her,warning her. An urgent sense her of unease rose from her feet,numbing her, yet the cold expression in her eyes didn't change in the slightest.
"We already have someone in mind My Queen"
"Who" Isabelle asks raising her brows slightly yet her hands turned the cold object on her Wrist faster,the foreboding feeling becoming more profound,all her efforts to keep it in reigns failed miserably.
" You,your Grace"he says with a bow throwing the courtroom in an uproar.
CRASH !!!!