The first thing Elowen felt was wrongness.
Not fear—fear was sharp, obvious. This was subtler. A pressure behind her ribs, as if the air itself had learned her name and was whispering it too close to her skin.
The second thing she felt was light.
Blinding. Silver-bright. It tore her from sleep with no courtesy, no warning, and no mercy. Her breath ripped from her lungs as the ground vanished beneath her feet.
She fell.
—or rather, she was pulled.
Elowen screamed, the sound shredding her throat as the world twisted into ribbons of cold and heat, shadow and sparks. Magic slammed into her like surf against stone, ancient and heavy and furious, and for one panicked heartbeat she thought it might tear her apart just to see what she was made of.
Then she hit solid ground.
Stone. Cold. Carved with symbols that burned white-hot beneath her palms.
She gagged, coughing as air rushed back into her lungs, the taste of iron sharp on her tongue. Her hands shook as she pushed herself upright, every nerve screaming. The light dimmed—no, not dimmed. Focused.
Candles.
Hundreds of them.
They ringed her in a perfect circle, flames frozen unnaturally still, their light reflected in the polished black floor beneath her. Above, the ceiling arched impossibly high, carved with twisting vines and crescent moons and creatures that seemed to watch her as she moved.
A throne room.
Her stomach dropped.
"No," she whispered hoarsely. "No—this is—this is a dream."
A dream did not smell like this.
Cold stone. Old magic. Something green and alive beneath it all.
She staggered to her feet, heart hammering as her gaze lifted.
They were watching her.
Not courtiers. Not servants.
Kings.
Four thrones rose at the far end of the hall, each carved from a different substance, each radiating a power so dense it made her bones ache.
The leftmost throne was wrought of obsidian and shadow, its edges dissolving into smoke. A man sat there like he had grown from the darkness itself—tall, still, his silver eyes sharp as drawn blades. He did not move.
But his gaze locked on her—and the shadows at his feet shifted.
The second throne burned.
Not metaphorically. Flames curled lazily around its base, licking at the air without consuming it. The fae lounging there was all sharp angles and barely contained violence, copper-gold hair tied back with careless precision. His eyes—ember-bright—widened the moment they met hers.
He leaned forward.
The third throne breathed.
Living wood, carved and grown rather than shaped, leaves unfurling and recoiling in slow rhythm. The fae seated there rose smoothly to his feet, expression unreadable but eyes—gods, his eyes—softening as if he recognized her.
The fourth throne was ice.
Clear, flawless, cruel.
Its occupant did not stand. He regarded her with glacial composure, pale hair falling loose over his shoulders, frost creeping along the floor beneath him in delicate, lethal patterns.
Silence crushed the space between them.
Elowen swallowed, every instinct screaming that she was prey in a den of apex predators.
"I—I think there's been a mistake," she managed, voice trembling. "I don't know how I got here, but I don't belong—"
The words died in her throat.
Because the air changed.
Magic surged beneath her feet, white-hot and alive, the runes carved into the floor flaring to blinding brilliance. Pain lanced up her legs, not burning—awakening.
She cried out as the light shot upward, wrapping her in threads of silver and green and shadow-black, spinning around her like a living loom.
The shadowed king was on his feet in an instant.
"That's impossible," he said quietly—and for the first time, his control cracked.
The fire prince swore, flames roaring higher. "You said the bloodline was extinct."
"I believed it was," the frost regent replied, his calm fracturing as ice splintered at the edge of his throne.
The verdant lord took a single step toward her. "Easy," he murmured—not to the others.
To her.
Elowen's knees buckled as the magic tightened, pulling—not at her body, but at something deeper. Something old.
Invisible threads snapped outward from her chest.
One brushed the shadow king.
The room shuddered.
Another lashed toward the fire prince, coiling around his wrist.
He gasped, eyes blazing brighter.
A third reached for the verdant lord—and when it touched him, the candles around them burst into wildflowers and flame in the same breath.
The frost regent rose slowly now, horror dawning across his perfect composure.
"No," he said softly. "This cannot be allowed."
Elowen screamed as the final thread snapped into place.
The runes beneath her feet exploded with light.
Above them all, a long-buried sigil flared to life—ancient, forbidden, unmistakable.
The shadow king whispered the word like a curse.
"Weaver."
The light went out.
And the world began to break.