Chapter 2: Starlight In Her Veins

Chapter 2: Starlight in Her Veins

"Some inherit thrones. Others inherit the fire it took to burn them down."

The dream always began with stars.

Not quiet, distant things — but living constellations. Too close. Too bright. Pulsing like veins in the sky.

Aeris stood barefoot in a field of silver grass, clothed in white. The stars whispered in a language she didn't understand, yet felt in her bones.

And always, the smell of smoke.

Then came the fire.

Blinding. Beautiful. Consuming.

A crown falling from a woman's head.

A scream torn from the heavens.

A sword through a man's chest.

A cradle bathed in light.

She always woke gasping.

This morning was no different.

Aeris jolted upright, heart pounding, breath snagging in her throat. The cracked wooden ceiling above greeted her — familiar, but suddenly foreign.

Sweat clung to her skin. Her shift stuck to her back. Her hair, damp and tangled, brushed the nape of her neck.

She swung her legs off the bed and crossed to the window, flinging the shutters open. Mist hung between ancient trees. The Thornewild Forest. Still. Quiet. Watching.

She breathed in deep.

The dream clung.

Maela stood at the hearth, stirring a pot thick with steam when Aeris entered the kitchen.

"Was it the stars again?" Maela asked without turning.

Aeris blinked. "What?"

"You've got that look. Pale. Gutted."

"It was just a dream," Aeris murmured, sliding onto the bench.

Maela's spoon scraped slow circles in the pot. "Dreams don't knock for no reason. Not in this forest."

"You always say that," Aeris muttered.

"I say it because it's true."

Silence settled between them, broken only by the soft bubbling in the pot.

Aeris toyed with the wooden spoon beside her. "Have I ever… been anywhere else? I mean, before here?"

Maela stilled. "You know why we keep to the trees."

"I know," she said softly. "But something inside me feels like it's—pushing. Like I'm waiting for something I don't remember."

Maela met her eyes. "Then don't go shaking branches you can't see the tops of."

Later that morning, Aeris made her way to the village square with a basket of dried herbs under her arm. The market murmured with life — the creak of carts, the snap of fabric, the soft bartering of old women.

"Over here!" Mira called, waving from a booth lined with roots and faded scrolls.

Aeris smiled.

Mira: kind-eyed, steady-handed, always humming like the forest itself. She was only a few years older, but there was something ancient in her — like stone soaked in moonlight.

No one knew where she'd come from. She'd appeared after the last storm, silver in her hair, scrolls in her bag written in a language no one else could read.

They'd been inseparable ever since.

"You slept late," Mira teased.

"I had the dream again."

Mira's expression shifted. "The stars?"

Aeris nodded. "And fire. Too much fire."

Mira handed her a pouch of sage. "Then they're trying to tell you something."

Aeris narrowed her eyes. "Are you just a healer?"

Mira smiled, soft and unreadable. "Is anyone ever just anything?"

The boy's scream ripped through the market.

Aeris turned just in time to catch him — blood running down his leg, staining her shift. His skin was ghost-pale, his breaths sharp and shallow.

"He fell," someone said. "The cart blade—he didn't see it."

Mira rushed forward, reaching for her pouch, but Aeris was already moving.

She knelt. Pressed her hands over the gash. Heat bloomed beneath her skin — not fire, but light. A soft silver glow spilled from her palms, flooding the wound.

The boy's skin shimmered. Then stilled.

Whole.

A hush fell.

Dozens had seen it.

Aeris stood slowly, breath uneven, palms shaking.

Mira stared at her — not with fear, but with something like knowing.

That night, the cottage was quiet. Too quiet.

Aeris sat huddled near the hearth, legs folded, hands trembling.

Maela paced the floor. Her face was pale. Her voice, tight.

"You weren't supposed to do that," she snapped.

"I didn't know what I was doing," Aeris said. "I just—he was bleeding. I had to help."

"You showed them. All of them."

"Showed them what?"

Maela stopped pacing. Closed her eyes. "What you are."

Aeris's throat tightened. "What am I?"

Silence stretched — heavy, awful.

Maela finally sat, folding her hands together like a woman praying.

"Your mother was Seraphina Valerien. The last queen of Ashcourt."

Aeris blinked. "What?"

"She had the starlight gift. Like you. It runs in your blood. That mark on your hand — it's not just magic. It's a claim."

"My mother died in a fire."

Maela's voice cracked. "She set that fire. To protect you from the ones who hunted her."

Aeris rose to her feet. "No. You're lying."

"I swore I wouldn't tell you unless I had to," Maela said. "But you used your gift. In the open. They'll come now. Just like they came for her."

Later, Aeris sat alone, curled in a blanket, staring at the glowing mark on her palm.

It pulsed faintly — a star trapped beneath her skin.

She pressed her hand to her heart, as if it could hold her together.

And far away, across the desert, a prince stirred in his sleep.

His lips parted.

"Who are you?"

And Aeris — lost in slumber, tangled in blankets and silence — exhaled as if she'd heard him.

Elsewhere…

Long after the market had emptied and night had swallowed the trees, a man remained.

He stood alone beside the old well, hood drawn low, cloak whispering in the breeze.

In his gloved hand, he turned a small obsidian coin — smooth, dark, and marked with a sigil too old for most to name.

He had arrived just after the light.

And he had seen her.

Without a word, he crouched, dropped the coin into the blackness, and whispered a name.

 "Talien."

The water swallowed it whole.