The Spirit Realm never slept rather bustling with joys, sorrows, memories and emotions of every beings- dead or alive.
Even in its quietest corners—where spirit-blossoms hung in still air, and mirror-lakes cradled the sky's dreaming heart—there was always movement. A sigh. A shimmer. A whisper of something more.
And somewhere between starlight and dawn, beneath skies the color of wisteria, a child was learning to laugh.
She was not like other spiritborn.
The elders called her many things. A miracle. An anomaly. In hushed voices, a possible curse. She was the only daughter of the High Spirit Queen and a sealed dragon deity—born of memory and flame, of light and destruction. Even as a babe, her eyes shimmered with something too vast for language.
They named her Illyria.
Though she appeared five, she had been alive for centuries. Time in the Spirit Realm flowed like a dream—soft, disobedient, impossible to count. At "age" three, she wandered farther than most dared. Her bare feet stirred golden pollen into the breeze. Fire wisps danced around her like wayward sparks, drawn to her raw, unfinished magic. Wind spirits braided her silvery-lavender hair and called her Little Sun-Breath, for even they could sense the warmth sleeping in her blood.
The world loved her.
And she loved it back.
***
In the heart of the Spirit Realm, where time flowed like a breath held between songs, the sun never truly rose nor fell. It shimmered like a dream woven into silver clouds. Trees whispered lullabies. The skies bled soft pastels. Magic wasn't cast here; it existed, effortlessly.
And in the middle of it all—between spirit palaces and blooming lakes that mirrored the sky—there was a strange little girl.
Princess Illyria.
She wore no crown. No jewelry. Her long white-silver hair was tied up in a messy ribbon of leaves. Her royal robe was traded for a tunic made of windwool, stained with ink and berry juice. And in her hand, she held a frog.
"Don't do it," said the frog. Or rather, the spirit in the shape of one.
Illyria tilted her head, squinting. "Why not? It's just a leap."
"It's a leap off the top of the Moonroot Tree!"
"But if I fall," she grinned, "you can catch me. You have wings, remember?"
The frog gave her a long look. "I haven't had wings since the Flood War. I lost them for love."
Illyria considered this for half a second. Then she crouched on the Moonroot branch.
She jumped.
A scream tore through the wind. Then laughter followed.
Illyria landed with a soft thump on a passing spirit cloud that caught her like a feather bed. She bounced once, twice, then rolled, laughing so hard she nearly cried. The frog fell next to her with a splat.
"You're insane," it muttered.
She giggled. "I'm a princess. I can afford to be."
---
Illyria had grown up in the Spirit Realm, not as a ruler-in-training, but as a child. Her mother, Queen Serenia, had chosen not to burden her with courtly duties, ancient scrolls, or titles that aged the soul. Not yet.
"Let her be," the Queen once said. "Let her speak to rivers and throw stones at fate. She will wear the crown when it fits, not when we force it upon her."
And so Illyria was raised by wind spirits, tree-bards, and wandering shadows who taught her riddles, songs, and the forgotten names of clouds. She learned how to leap across floating isles and dance with lightning sprites. She knew nothing of war, and very little of courtly grace. But she knew joy. She knew magic that had no rules.
And yet, even in this freedom, something stirred beneath her skin.
---
On the eve of her five-hundredth name day, the Spirit Palace shimmered in hush. The elders prepared for the Queen's speech. The courtiers whispered of omens. The young spirits danced beneath the moonroots, knowing little, caring less.
Illyria, meanwhile, had found something in the orchard. Something curled up under an old stone shrine.
It was a creature.
No. A girl.
Or something between both.
Her skin was scaled but soft. Her eyes golden but ancient. Her hair was tangled and long, the color of ash after a storm. She was asleep.
Illyria stared.
"Are you dead?" she asked.
The creature didn't respond.
Illyria knelt beside her, poking gently. "If you're dead, I'm going to name you. That's the rule."
A growl, low and cracked, escaped the girl's throat.
Illyria smiled. "Ah. Not dead. Just rude."
The girl blinked, slowly. Her pupils narrowed into slits. She sniffed the air.
"Spirit?"
"Half. Maybe. I'm Illyria. You look like you ate a thunderbird."
The girl tried to rise. Failed. Her limbs trembled.
"What are you doing here?" Illyria asked. "This shrine hasn't been used in years."
"Hiding," said the creature-girl, and her voice was hoarse. "Sleeping. Waiting."
"For what?"
"For no one. For nothing."
Illyria tilted her head. "That sounds lonely. Do you want a berry?"
She held out a squished handful of glowberries. The creature sniffed. Then took one.
"...They taste like light."
"They taste like secrets," Illyria corrected.
And thus, she stayed.
She did not tell anyone about the strange girl. She visited daily, bringing food, stories, and pieces of sky she claimed she had caught in her sleeves.
The girl, slowly, healed.
She never told her name. So Illyria gave her one.
Kaelira
"Because your voice is hollow, and heavy, and I like it," Illyria explained.
Kaelira rolled her eyes. "You are strange."
"I know. Everyone says so."
---
Weeks passed.
Illyria began to speak less and listen more. Kaelira began to sleep less and stand more. They walked together, rarely touching, but always near.
Kaelira told her stories of a place beyond clouds. A world that once burned. A palace of flame. A queen who fell.
"That sounds like a fairy tale."
"It isn't."
"Then you were part of it?"
Karlira paused. Her clawed fingers clenched.
"I was the end of it."
Illyria said nothing.
Instead, she placed a crown of woven moonvine on Kaelira's head. "Then let this be the start of another."
And Kaelira —for the first time—did not remove it.
She thought to herself, " The world seems to have changed. How much time has it passed ? Someone who shouldn't be born has come to life. Maybe this is her destiny. "
---
On the night before the coming-of-age ceremony was to be announced, Queen Serenia stood on her balcony, watching her daughter chase fireflies across a bridge of mist.
The Prime Advisor stepped beside her. "You still refuse to summon her to court?"
"Yes."
"Even now?"
"Especially now."
"Your Grace, she is of age. In five hundred more years, she must stand before the Crown of Threads."
Serenia turned. Her eyes were stars.
"Then let her have these five hundred years. Let her be strange. Let her be soft. Let her know laughter before burden. Because when the day comes that the spirits bend to her will, I want her to remember what it was like to fall and be caught."
The Advisor bowed.
And the Queen whispered, to no one in particular: "Let her be the storm's daughter. But first, let her be the breeze."
---
Far below, under an orchard moon, two girls lay on the grass.
Kaelira whispered, "Do you ever think about becoming a queen?"
Illyria replied, "I think about becoming a cloud. Or maybe a bird."
Kaelira closed her eyes. "And if you must become a queen?"
Illyria turned to her. Her eyes were wide and far too ancient for her face.
"Then I hope I don't forget this night."
Kaelira muttered, " Maybe both of them are different. Her fate is so cruel. Guess I have to stay until she learns to roar."
And above them, the stars began to hum.
***
By five, Illyria could bend shimmer through trees and summon echoes of forgotten stars. Not through study, but through emotion. Joy made the leaves laugh. Sorrow turned rivers to mist. Her creation magic didn't follow rules—it followed feelings. She built dreams the way others might build with blocks.
But on the eve of the same winter, the stars grew quiet. And so did her mother.
"Illyria," the Spirit Queen whispered beneath the glowing Dreamroot Tree, where the memories of fallen spirits flickered like fireflies in the bark. "Do you remember the mountain I told you never to approach? The one with dark wind and glowing cracks?"
Illyria blinked. "The one that doesn't sleep?"
"Yes. Never go there."
"Why?"
"Because that mountain remembers what the world wants to forget."
The Queen's voice stayed gentle, but the sky dimmed—like fate had turned a page.
That same week, the Gears of Fate stirred.
Illyria dreamed of fire.
Not the fire of candles or hearths, but something ancient and mournful. A roar without end. A loneliness older than the stars. She woke to smoke curling from her fingertips, and memories in her bones that weren't hers. She began hearing echoes—wars, grief, joy, love, death—none of them her own.
She touched a spirit friend, a soft deerlike wisp named Ura, and felt his buried pain.
"You saw it," he whispered, trembling. "You felt it... didn't you?"
Illyria pulled her hand away. "I didn't mean to. What was that? I feel scared."
"I know. But you were born for it, My princess."
Panicked, she ran to her mother. She begged to be sealed. To be "normal." But the Queen only held her close and said:
"You are not cursed, my star-heart. You are awakening. Your soul was made to carry stories others cannot bear. You are the projection of memory itself, my dear sweetheart."
Still, something darker stirred that same year.
Far beyond light and laughter, in the mountain her mother once warned her of, a breath was drawn. Slow. Heavy. The dragon deity—her long-sealed father—sensed her presence . Not in words. But in the language of fate. The world which had long forgotten him still carried his scent .
But now... his heart beat once again.
And his blood remembered her.