"They say dreams shatter like glass—quiet at first, until you're left standing barefoot in a storm of sharp, glinting fragments."
---
That morning, I woke up with a song on my lips and blood in the air.
The corridors of the Opaline Hall buzzed with murmurs. Contestants clustered in corners, voices lowered to whispers that crackled with tension. One of us was missing.
Elira, the soft-voiced girl from the Kingdom of Thalorien—the one with ocean eyes and a harp that sang like starlight—had vanished. Her bed was untouched, her belongings neatly folded, her favorite silver comb left on the pillow like a quiet goodbye. But there was no note. No farewell. Just… absence.
Seraphina was the first to speak it aloud. "It's begun."
Her tone held no fear. If anything, she sounded pleased.
I clenched my fists. "What do you mean it's begun?"
She turned to me, her expression carved from frost. "The prophecy isn't just a song. It's a reckoning. You didn't really think everyone would make it to the end, did you?"
The room fell silent. Even the air seemed to pause, caught between breath and scream.
Leander arrived not long after, the royal guards trailing him like shadows. His eyes found mine immediately, and I saw the flicker of worry beneath the princely mask.
"She's gone without a trace," he said quietly to the group. "There was a disturbance in the night. Magic. Old magic."
I stepped forward, heart pounding. "Was it like the Songborn Mirror? The kind that reveals something… painful?"
"No." He shook his head. "This was different. There were no visions. Just silence."
A sudden chill slithered down my spine. Magic that erases someone. No echoes. No trace. Just silence.
The Queen's Voice, the enchanted herald of the throne, summoned us that afternoon to the Glass Amphitheater, a crystalline stage surrounded by enchanted mirrors reflecting not just appearances, but truth. The next trial had been accelerated.
"Today's performance," the voice boomed, "will be a solo. One by one, you shall sing before the court and the prophecy's eye. The theme: Loss. The winner earns immunity for the next trial. The weakest will face… the Judgment of the Veil."
That last phrase made several girls flinch. I looked around, catching Ronan's eye. He looked as shaken as I felt.
"Judgment of the Veil?" I whispered.
"It's an ancient punishment," he said grimly. "They say those who fail disappear behind the Veil… forever trapped between memory and magic."
No one had mentioned that part of the contest before.
I was called fourth. My feet felt heavy, each step toward the crystal stage like walking into a trap.
I stood alone. The hall pulsed with expectation. Judges sat high in their ivory thrones, the Queen's empty seat looming like a wound. Leander leaned forward, his gaze fixed on me as if willing me strength.
I closed my eyes.
And sang.
Not a polished melody or court-approved harmony, but something raw. Something real. The song of a girl who had lost everything—family, memory, safety. A girl who didn't know where she came from, but knew she could not lose anyone else. My voice cracked like thunder, then softened like rain. Notes bent, breaking and healing in the same breath.
When I finished, silence held the air for a heartbeat.
Then thunderous applause erupted—not polite court claps, but something deeper. Genuine.
Except from Seraphina, who simply smiled. Cold. Calculated. Unmoved.
By evening, the results were posted on a glowing shard of enchanted crystal in the Grand Hall. My name gleamed at the top—Winner.
But farther down, near the bottom, was the name no one expected.
Ronan.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
"No," I breathed, pushing past the others. "There must be a mistake."
But the Queen's Voice had no errors. The magic had chosen.
That night, the Judgment of the Veil was held in the courtyard beneath the Moonfall Arch. Ronan stood alone, a golden spotlight swirling around him. Behind him shimmered the Veil—an eerie curtain of smoke and light, whispering in a language none of us understood.
He didn't sing.
He looked at me.
"Lyra," he called softly, "don't stop. No matter what happens. Don't let them twist your voice."
Then the Veil opened.
And swallowed him whole.
Just like that, he was gone.
A second name vanished from the registry. Another voice silenced. Another dream shattered.
I fell to my knees.
And somewhere deep inside me, something ancient stirred—burning like wildfire, whispering with a voice I didn't recognize but somehow knew was mine.
This wasn't just a contest anymore.
It was a war.
---
I didn't sleep that night.
I sat at the edge of my bed, the silence pressing in like a weighted cloak. Ronan's words replayed in my mind on a loop, the sound of his voice lingering in the air as if the Veil hadn't swallowed him completely.
"Don't let them twist your voice."
But what did that mean?
Was someone—something—manipulating the trials? Changing the melody of fate itself?
A gentle knock on my door broke the stillness. I didn't answer. Still, the door creaked open and Leander stepped inside, the flickering candle in his hand casting golden light across his troubled face.
"I shouldn't be here," he said. "But I had to see you."
I looked at him, hollow. "They took him. The trial took him. And no one is saying why."
He sat beside me, the bed creaking beneath his weight. "The Veil hasn't been used in over a century. It's meant for traitors, not contestants."
"Then why Ronan?" My voice broke. "He wasn't the worst. He didn't deserve—"
"Maybe that's exactly why." His eyes darkened. "There's more at play here, Lyra. The court is keeping secrets. Some of the judges didn't even vote. I heard them arguing with the Queen's Voice afterward. Something's wrong."
The fear I'd kept caged all day surged forward like a scream.
"Is this prophecy even real?" I whispered. "Or are we just… pawns in someone else's song?"
Leander reached into his coat and pulled something out—Ronan's pendant. A small silver charm shaped like a falling star.
"I found this near the Veil," he said softly. "I think he dropped it on purpose. A message. Or maybe a thread."
I took it from his hand, my fingers trembling. The metal was warm. Too warm.
Magic.
I closed my eyes, pressing it to my chest—and for a flicker of a second, I felt him.
Ronan.
A whisper. A heartbeat. A memory that wasn't mine—of us laughing beneath a willow tree by the riverbank. The moment before I left for the capital. His hand brushing mine.
Gone.
But not lost.
"I have to find a way to reach him," I said, voice firming like iron wrapped in song. "The Veil took him, but that doesn't mean he's gone forever. Not if he left this."
Leander looked at me like I was insane. Then—slowly—he nodded.
"Then we'll find a way. Together."
And there it was again—that strange tug between us, fragile and undeniable, like the first note of a melody we hadn't quite learned.
A knock interrupted us.
Seraphina stood in the doorway, her pale eyes glowing with cold amusement.
"Oh, how touching," she drawled. "Consoling the champion already, Prince Thorne?"
Leander stood. "Leave, Seraphina."
She stepped into the room anyway, a single footfall humming with magic. "Careful, Lyra. You might think this is about voices and virtue, but it's not. It's about control. And control," she said, eyes gleaming, "is something you're losing."
I stood too, something rising in me—wilder than grief. Sharper than fear.
"Then maybe it's time I stop playing nice."
She tilted her head. "Good. I was hoping you'd fight back."
She left in a whirl of silks and venom.
Leander glanced at me, brow furrowed. "She's planning something."
"I know," I murmured. "But so am I."
And as the final echoes of Ronan's voice faded from the halls, I made a silent vow: I would uncover the truth behind the Veil. Behind the prophecy. Behind everything.
Because dreams don't just shatter.
Sometimes, they sharpen into blades.
And I was done being silent.
---
The palace was different now.
It wasn't just the missing faces or the murmurs in the corridors—it was something deeper. As though the music that once thrummed in Aeloria's bones had been replaced by silence with teeth.
The morning after Ronan's disappearance, Queen Aria's projection did not appear to announce the next trial.
Instead, it was the Voice of the Court—Chancellor Maelric—who addressed us.
He stood on the high dais, clad in deep plum robes stitched with silver thread, his expression more stone than skin. "The next phase of the Spotlight Serenade will be delayed. One of the contestants has… withdrawn."
Withdrawn. The word soured in my mouth.
A girl behind me—Calla, from the Verdant Isles—let out a shaky breath. "So that's what they're calling it."
Maelric's voice rolled on. "You are to remain within your quarters unless summoned. No further discussion will be tolerated."
Whispers broke like waves.
I didn't stay.
As soon as we were dismissed, I ducked away from the others, pressing into a servants' corridor I'd discovered days before. It was narrow, winding—and most importantly, unguarded. The walls hummed faintly, alive with old enchantments, threads of music still woven into the stone.
I followed the warmth of Ronan's pendant, now strung around my neck. It pulsed like a heartbeat, leading me not back toward the Veil—but beneath it.
Through shadows and silence, down forgotten stairs and dust-choked halls.
Until I found a door.
No guards. No torches. Just a crescent symbol carved into the wood—the same symbol etched faintly into Ronan's pendant.
I hesitated only a moment before placing my palm against it.
The door sighed open with a long, low note, as if the castle itself was exhaling.
The chamber beyond was circular, lined with mirrors rimmed in obsidian and starlight. The air thrummed with raw magic, and at its center stood a crystal basin filled with water that shimmered like silver ink.
And floating above it—barely—was a single thread of sound.
Music.
It wasn't a song exactly, more like an echo left behind. But when I stepped forward, it bent toward me. Like it knew me. Like it had been waiting.
I reached out, fingers grazing the shimmer—and suddenly I was there.
Not in the chamber. Not in the palace.
But inside the memory.
I stood in a moonlit glade, trees swaying gently around me. Ronan knelt beside an ancient stone, singing softly. Not to me. Not even aloud.
To the memory itself.
He was leaving a part of himself behind.
A warning.
"Lyra," his voice whispered, carried on phantom wind. "You have to listen. The prophecy isn't just a test. It's a seal. A cage. The kingdom won't awaken unless the right key is used. And if they pick the wrong voice—if she wins—everything will burn."
He turned, as though he could see me, even from within a dream.
"She's trying to change the song, Lyra. You can't let her."
The vision shattered.
I staggered back into the crystal chamber, breath coming fast.
She.
Seraphina.
It had to be her.
She was trying to twist the trials, bend the prophecy to her own ambition. And somehow… she had help.
Because someone in the palace wanted the wrong voice to win.
I clutched the pendant tight, heart pounding.
I'd lost Ronan.
But he hadn't given up.
He'd left me this melody—this warning—for a reason.
Now it was my turn to write the next verse.
No more playing by their rules.
No more waiting.
The song was changing.
And I would be the one to finish it.
---
I returned to the palace halls cloaked in the shadows of the servants' passageways, the pendant beneath my cloak humming with a strange heat. It pulsed like a promise—Ronan's voice tethering me to purpose.
I didn't cry.
I didn't panic.
Not yet.
Instead, I walked with measured steps back toward the dormitory wing. But the moment I rounded the final corridor, I stopped cold.
Seraphina was waiting.
Alone.
Leaning casually against the gilded archway like she'd been expecting me.
She regarded me with feline ease, lips curled into a smirk that didn't reach her eyes. "You've been sneaking around, songbird."
I didn't respond. I couldn't—not when my pulse roared like thunder in my ears.
She pushed off the wall. "Careful. The palace doesn't take kindly to secrets. Or traitors."
"I could say the same to you," I said, my voice lower than I expected. "What did you do to him?"
Her smile sharpened. "Is that what you think? That I made him vanish?"
"Don't play innocent, Seraphina. You knew something was wrong. You always know."
She stepped closer, eyes glittering. "Oh, sweet Lyra. You think this is about one lost boy? No. This is about destiny. And if you keep nosing around places you shouldn't be… you'll learn what happens when you cross fate."
For a moment, I thought she'd lash out—strike me with some hidden magic or enchantment—but instead she turned on her heel, skirts trailing like smoke.
"And Lyra?" she called back without turning. "You might want to watch your harmony. The palace is listening."
She disappeared down the corridor before I could answer.
---
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The dormitory felt too still. Too staged. Every shadow seemed to stretch wrong, like the castle itself was watching me through the dark.
So I did the only thing I could.
I wrote.
I pulled my journal into my lap and pressed pen to page, tracing out notes. Lyrics. Half-formed thoughts laced with memory and fear. My hand trembled with each stroke, but the melody took shape anyway—a song Ronan would've understood. A lullaby for the truth.
Just as I finished the final stanza, a knock rapped against my door.
Not loud. Just… deliberate.
My breath caught.
I crossed the room and opened it an inch.
Leander stood on the other side, his jaw tense, cloak damp with rain from the palace balcony.
He didn't speak. Just held something out toward me.
A scrap of silk.
Torn.
Red.
And unmistakably from Ronan's cloak.
I pulled him inside before another eye could see.
Leander's voice was low, but his eyes burned. "This was left outside my chamber. No note. No sign of who dropped it. Just… this."
"Someone's trying to send a message."
He nodded. "And not just to you. To me. They know I'm helping you. That I'm not just a judge anymore."
Something shifted between us then. A quiet reckoning.
We weren't just two people caught in a contest anymore.
We were allies.
Tethered by truth.
By loss.
And by whatever was coming next.
Leander's gaze met mine. "Whatever happens in the next trial… you're not facing it alone."
I didn't realize how badly I needed to hear those words until they were already spoken.
The castle outside shivered under another pulse of magic, faint and distant like a storm humming just beyond the veil.
The next trial was coming.
But so was something else.
Something darker.
And as I tucked the torn fabric beside Ronan's pendant, I whispered a promise to the silence:
They would not break me.
Not without hearing my full song.