The corridors of Solaria Palace were nothing like I had imagined.
They weren't grandiose, like I had seen in storybooks. There were no golden tapestries hanging from towering walls, no crystal chandeliers dripping with starlight. The halls were narrow, carved from pale stone, worn smooth by time and footsteps long forgotten. The air smelled faintly of incense and something else—something sharp, like old magic.
I had been given a room high in the eastern wing, where the moonlight filtered through stained glass, casting a thousand fractured rainbows onto the cold floor. The door closed softly behind me, and I stood in the silence for a long moment, just breathing. I was alone.
The echo of the trial still hummed in my chest.
The Queen's words had settled like a weight in my bones. There's magic in you that shouldn't exist.
I had no answers. Only questions.
And the strangest feeling that I wasn't supposed to be here.
The room felt too small for someone like me—someone who had never belonged anywhere. I had always been an outsider, orphaned long before I even knew the meaning of the word. Raised by Grandmother in a village too remote to matter, I'd spent my childhood listening to old songs, watching the stars, hiding from a world that never seemed to want me. And yet here I was, summoned to this palace of power and mystery, expected to awaken a kingdom whose name I had barely heard in passing.
Aeloria.
It was said to be a myth, a kingdom lost to time, swallowed by an ancient curse that had silenced it for centuries. But now, I was part of something that seemed bigger than all the songs I had ever sung. My voice—my voice—was supposed to be the key to breaking that curse.
I sat at the small writing desk in the corner of the room, the soft glow of the moon casting strange shadows on the walls. There was a small chest on the table, carved with symbols I didn't recognize. The Queen had given it to me after my trial, her eyes unreadable.
"Your task is simple," she had said. "Unveil your past, Lyra. The future depends on it."
Her cryptic words burned in my memory. I had been handed the chest as if it were the answer to a riddle I couldn't yet solve. Aeloria. The prophecy. The strangers with their cryptic glances and veiled warnings.
I hesitated before unlocking it, fingers brushing over the cool metal.
Inside, the chest was lined with velvet—purple, the color of twilight—and within it lay a single item: a scroll, ancient and brittle, sealed with the same sun-shaped crest I had seen on the letter that had summoned me here.
My heart skipped a beat. This was it. The answer I had been searching for.
With trembling hands, I broke the seal.
The paper inside was old, its edges frayed and yellowed. The text was written in an elegant, flowing script I couldn't fully understand—but the symbols… they were familiar. They were the same symbols I had seen carved into the edges of the throne room, etched into the walls of Solaria Palace.
I scanned the scroll, eyes racing across the words, my breath quickening as a certain phrase caught my attention:
"The Song of Aeloria: When the voice of the Forgotten awakens, so too shall the kingdom rise or fall. The one with the purest note will restore the heart. But if the wrong voice sings, ruin shall fall."
My pulse thudded in my ears. The prophecy. The one they had whispered about—the one that had brought me here.
But there was more.
Beneath the prophecy, written in a different hand, was a note:
"The key lies within you. The blood that has been hidden, the magic that flows beneath the earth, and the voice that will break the silence—find them all, and the song will sing itself."
Find them all. What did that time mean?
I ran my fingers over the words, a strange feeling gnawing at me. The key lies within you. But what key? What blood? What magic?
The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to deepen, and for a moment, I felt a presence—something watching me. I looked around, but the room was empty. Only the sound of my own breathing filled the space.
I turned the scroll over, hoping for another clue. There, at the bottom, was a sketch—faded and indistinct, but unmistakable. It was a silhouette of a woman, crowned, her face obscured by shadows. And beneath it, the same sun-shaped crest.
I swallowed hard, my hand gripping the scroll as the words began to make sense in my mind. There was no mention of the Queen. No mention of the other princesses. Only one woman. One voice. My voice.
I wasn't supposed to be the one to join this game. I was supposed to win it. But the more I uncovered, the more I realized—this wasn't a trial of talent or song.
This was a trial of identity.
The question that burned now was: Who was I really?
---
A knock at the door shattered my thoughts. I tucked the scroll away in the chest, heart hammering. "Come in."
The door creaked open.
A figure stepped inside, cloaked in black. It was him—the stranger from the trial. His storm-gray eyes locked onto mine, his presence filling the room with an intensity I couldn't shake.
"You've begun to uncover the truth," he said, voice like velvet and steel. "But the hardest part is yet to come."
I didn't ask how he knew. I only nodded, feeling the weight of his gaze settle on me like a storm ready to break.
"The prophecy is more than a song, Lyra," he continued, stepping closer. "It's a promise. And a curse."
My breath caught.
He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "And you're going to have to decide which one you'll keep."
---
The stranger stood in the doorway, his cloak of midnight black swirling around his feet like a shadow unraveling in the dim light. His presence was a storm contained—a quiet chaos that I could feel in my bones, every muscle tensing as his eyes found mine.
He didn't step forward, but he didn't leave either. It was as if he was waiting for me to make the first move.
I shouldn't have felt the way I did. His gaze was cold, unreadable, as if he were a puzzle I wasn't meant to solve. But beneath the frost, there was something else. Something I couldn't name. Something pulling at me.
I felt it in my chest, like a melody half-remembered.
He stepped closer, breaking the stillness. The room seemed to contract, the air heavy with unspoken tension. His footsteps were silent, like he didn't touch the floor at all. I swallowed, trying to steady myself.
"You shouldn't be here," I whispered, though part of me wished I could ask him why he was here, what brought him to my trial, what connected him to the cursed kingdom of Aeloria.
He tilted his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. But it wasn't a smile of warmth. It was something darker, more knowing.
"I'm exactly where I need to be," he said, his voice low and smooth, like silk gliding over stone. "And so are you."
I didn't understand. My heart beat faster, my thoughts scattering like leaves caught in a storm. His eyes—those gray eyes—pierced me like they could see through every layer of my soul, stripping away my defenses. I had to look away.
"Why are you following me?" I managed to ask, though my voice trembled despite myself.
"I'm not following you." He took another step closer, until the space between us felt too small, too charged. "I'm guiding you."
I flinched, but he didn't seem to notice—or maybe he did. Either way, he was too close now. I took a step back, instinctively putting distance between us. He didn't seem to care.
"You don't understand," I said, more to myself than him. "This trial… the prophecy… it's too much. I didn't ask for any of this."
"You don't have to ask for it." His voice softened, just a fraction. "The prophecy chose you. The song chose you."
His words felt like a blow. My mind raced. The song. I could almost hear it again, distant and haunting, a whisper in the back of my mind. And then—him. That voice I'd felt in the forest, like it was entwined with my own.
I took another step back, my pulse quickening. "I don't even know who I am."
"Then it's time you found out." His gaze darkened as he reached into his cloak, drawing out something that gleamed in the dim light—a pendant, silver and ancient, shaped like a sun with rays stretching outward. It was the same as the one on the scroll. The one on the letter.
I froze.
"You—" My breath hitched. "Where did you get that?"
He held it out between us, the pendant swinging gently in his hand. "This is the key to everything," he said softly. "Aeloria. The prophecy. You."
I took a shaky step forward, drawn to it like I was meant to be. The silver light from the pendant seemed to reach into me, sparking something I didn't fully understand. Magic. Power. A connection. The same sensation I'd felt during the trial, when I stood in the heart of the forest, singing, fighting to hold onto my own voice.
I reached out, fingers brushing the pendant.
The world shifted.
The room seemed to blur around me. I saw flashes—visions—of a time long ago: a kingdom bathed in sunlight, towers rising against a sky that wasn't like ours. A woman with eyes like mine, singing. Her voice resonating in the very earth beneath her feet. The trees bending to her will. The sky responding.
And then, a dark figure—masked, cloaked, standing in the shadows, watching her.
The vision faded as quickly as it had come, leaving me gasping, my hand still outstretched. My heart was racing.
"What was that?" I whispered, my voice raw.
The stranger's eyes burned into mine. "It was your past. The one you've forgotten." He moved closer again, so close I could feel the heat radiating off him, as if he were a flame too dangerous to touch. "And it's the key to your future."
I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. "Why me?" I asked, the words slipping from my mouth before I could stop them. "Why am I the one the prophecy chose?"
"You were born for this, Lyra," he said softly, his voice like a blade wrapped in velvet. "You don't remember it, but your bloodline runs deep. Your voice... it is the missing piece. The one that will awaken Aeloria. Or destroy it."
I flinched. "Destroy it?"
His gaze softened, though it didn't lose its intensity. "The wrong voice can bring ruin. The wrong person can cause the prophecy to break. There's always been a price to power."
I couldn't breathe. My mind swirled with the weight of it. Was it possible? That this was all because of a bloodline I had no memory of? That my voice, the thing I had hidden for so long, was tied to something so enormous?
The stranger took a step back, the moment between us stretching out like a taut rope. "You are not just a contestant, Lyra. You are the final piece of a kingdom that slumbers beneath the earth."
I shook my head, fighting against the swell of panic rising in my chest. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know what I'm supposed to be."
He smiled, though there was no warmth in it. "You will learn. But you must make a choice."
"What choice?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He met my gaze, the weight of centuries behind his words. "The choice to be more than just a voice. You must decide whether to rule Aeloria—or let it remain lost forever."
And with that, he turned and vanished into the shadows, leaving me alone once more.
But this time, I wasn't just Lyra of no known house. I was Lyra, the song that could either save or destroy.
And I had no idea which path I was meant to walk.