Alina sat cross-legged on the threadbare couch, the small velvet pouch resting in her lap like a sleeping bird. The chaotic energy of the day had finally dissipated, leaving behind a silence that felt heavy with meaning. She turned the pouch over and over in her hands, the worn fabric soft against her fingertips. Her pulse quickened with a nervous, thrilling anticipation. This was it. After years of doubt and days of strange omens, this was the moment.
With a final, decisive breath, she loosened the drawstring and slipped the ring out, holding it carefully between her thumb and forefinger. The emerald gleamed under the dim, warm glow of her bedside lamp. It wasn't just green; it was a universe of deep, rich colour, like a fragment of an ancient, enchanted forest full of secrets. Her mother had always told her it would guide her, that it would make everything right. For the first time, she allowed herself to believe it.
She slid it onto the ring finger of her right hand. The metal was cool against her skin, the weight of it both strange and significant. She held her breath, her senses on high alert, waiting.
And nothing happened.
Alina stared down at her hand, her eyes wide, expecting something—a telltale warmth, a cascade of sparks, a magnetic pull toward something greater. A flash of light, a whisper of prophecy, a sign. Anything. But there was nothing. The ring sat there, silent and unassuming on her finger, just another piece of beautiful, inanimate jewellery.
Her shoulders, which had been tense with expectation, sagged in disappointment. A bitter, hollow feeling bloomed in her chest.
All day, she had built this moment up in her head, constructing a fantasy brick by brick. The stolen glances at the pouch, the lingering thoughts about fate, the wild, hopeful anticipation swelling inside her chest with every strange event. And now, here she was, sitting in her drab apartment, wearing the ring, and absolutely nothing was different. The wallpaper was still peeling. The sounds of the city traffic still bled through the thin glass of her window. She was still just Alina Gray.
She let out an annoyed, guttural sigh, sinking deeper into the couch. Maybe she had expected too much. Maybe she had been foolish to let a few coincidences and a nosy neighbour's story convince her that something as simple as a ring could change her life. The magic was in her head, a desperate fantasy cooked up by a lonely heart.
Alina leaned her head back against the lumpy cushions, feeling the immense weight of the day's emotional whiplash finally settle over her. She had spent far too much energy overthinking everything. Between Sarah's nosy interrogation, Logan's unexpected and mortifying attention, and the very real terror of the near robbery, her nerves were completely shot.
She closed her eyes. Just for a minute. Just to let the silence wash over her and quiet the storm in her mind.
Her body, grateful for the respite, melted into the couch. Her breathing slowed, deepening into a steady, rhythmic cadence.
Sleep, soft and unavoidable as a rising tide, pulled her under.
The digital clock on her nightstand ticked forward, the numbers shifting silently toward midnight. The apartment remained quiet, wrapped in shadows, as the world outside moved on without her.
Then, at exactly 12:00, the air in the room changed.
It was subtle at first. A shift in atmosphere, a low, resonant hum that seemed to vibrate in the space behind her ears, a frequency that didn't belong to the city. The ring, resting innocently on her sleeping finger, pulsed with something unseen, a single, silent beat.
The emerald flickered, an internal light flaring for a fraction of a second before extinguishing.
Alina's breathing hitched in her sleep, a subconscious response to a stimulus her waking mind couldn't perceive.
A ripple of energy moved through her body, slow and deliberate, like the pull of a deep-sea current. The walls of her apartment shimmered, their solid edges softening. The faded colours of her secondhand furniture began to bleed into something unreal, their forms wavering as if seen through water.
And then, everything unraveled.
The shift was sudden and absolute.
Alina gasped awake, her body weightless, suspended in a world she couldn't possibly understand. The couch was gone. Her apartment was gone. Gravity was gone.
She was falling—not in the terrifying, stomach-lurching way one fell in dreams, but through something thicker than air, something deeper than space. The sensation was overwhelming, a pull that reached beyond the physical, beyond logic, beyond the known constraints of time and dimension.
The space around her blurred into a kaleidoscope of impossible colours—deep, swirling ribbons of sapphire and gold, fractured by veins of crackling silver light that pulsed like a cosmic heartbeat. The ring burned against her skin, not a painful, destructive heat, but a powerful, forging one. It felt alive. It felt like it had been waiting an eternity for this moment, and it was singing.
Her pulse raced, a frantic drum against the roaring silence of the void. She tried to scream, to give voice to her terror and awe, but no sound escaped her lips.
And then, as suddenly as it began, everything stopped.
Alina landed softly, her bare feet meeting cool, damp earth with the gentleness of a falling leaf.
Not in her apartment. Not in the city. Not in any place she had ever known or could have imagined.
She was surrounded by night.
A cool, fragrant air swept over her skin, carrying the intoxicating scents of rich soil, night-blooming wildflowers, and something else—something crisp, clean, and electric. Magic.
She lifted her head, and her breath hitched in her throat. The sky stretched endlessly above her, a rich, dark tapestry of indigo and violet, blazing with stars brighter and closer than any she had ever seen. They weren't just pinpricks of light; they were a spill of diamond dust, so dense they illuminated the landscape with a soft, ethereal glow. The trees around her were tall and ancient, their silver leaves rustling gently in the breeze, chiming with a sound like tiny bells and glowing with a faint, internal luminescence under the deep midnight hues of the world.
She had never seen anything like this before.
And yet—as she stood there, taking in the impossible beauty, something deep inside her resonated with the place. A feeling of profound familiarity, of coming home to a place she'd never been.
As if it had been waiting for her.
The realization sent a powerful shiver down her spine.
She took a hesitant step forward, the soft moss cushioning her foot. Her heart was a frantic hammer in her chest. Where was she?
A whisper of movement to her right caught her attention.
She turned sharply, every muscle in her body tensing.
And there he was.
A figure stood before her, emerging from the shadows of a silver-barked tree. He was dressed in deep emerald, the fabric shimmering under the starlit sky as if woven from twilight itself.
Tall. Commanding. His posture spoke of a quiet, unshakable power. His eyes were as dark as storm clouds, and they burned with an unspoken intensity that seemed to see right through her.
Her pulse stalled.
Sarah's words slammed into her memory like a physical blow, a warning bell she had failed to heed.
A man dressed in emerald came to your apartment.
But she had never seen this man before in her life. Had she? There was a flicker of something in the hard line of his jaw, in the depths of his gaze, that tugged at a memory she couldn't grasp.
He took a step forward, his movements slow, deliberate—like a predator assessing its prey, or a sentinel greeting his queen.
His gaze locked onto hers, and his lips, which had been set in a firm line, curved into the smallest, knowing smile. It wasn't a smile of warmth, but of triumphant certainty.
"Princess Elyria."
The name struck her, foreign and yet resonant. The world, which had already unraveled once, now tilted on its axis, threatening to shatter completely.