Chapter Two: Daughter of Ash
Ten Years Later
The girl who once wore a crown of wildflowers now walked like a shadow in a flame-lit world.
Virelle moved through the northern woods, cloaked in ash-gray fabric that whispered with every step. Her face was hidden beneath a cowl, but her eyes—the color of stormlight—burned with memory. Elarion lay ahead, just beyond the hills, its towers cutting the horizon like thorns. She had not spoken her name aloud in ten years.
Not since her parents died.
Not since Lord Varyon Maeric had claimed their throne with blood still warm on the marble.
She was not just a girl anymore. She had become a secret. A rumor. A legend told by rebels in hushed tones and old tongue.
They said she had died that night with her family.
They were wrong.
She had been taken—spirited away by an old healer named Branneth, who had once served the queen in secret. He raised her in the borderlands, among the roots of old magic, teaching her to bend the world in quiet ways. Her gift had bloomed like a wound—painful, but powerful. Shadows whispered to her. Winds stilled when she spoke. Fire bent to her grief.
But even magic could not heal the ache. Or quench the thirst for vengeance.
Now, with her gift grown strong and her name buried beneath a dozen false ones, Virelle was ready. She had returned to Elarion not as a girl reclaiming her home—but as a threat.
And the court would soon know:
The daughter of ash had come for what was hers.