Lyra:
The Court of Thornsong had never been so silent.
Every whisper, every shimmer of wings, hung in the frozen air like shards of glass. I stood before the throne, the weight of a thousand years of law pressing against my chest. My name—Lyra Moonshadow—fell from the Queen's lips as though it were a curse.
"For consorting with forbidden currents," she declared, her voice rippling through the crystalline hall, "you are stripped of your title, your protection, and your right to stand among the Woodland Fae."
Gasps rippled through the assembly. I could feel their eyes cutting through me—once my kin, now strangers bound by fear and obedience.
The air was too bright here, too clean. The branches that arched above us glowed with unnatural light, and the floor beneath my bare feet pulsed with enchantment that rejected me now. The moment the decree fell, I felt the magic withdraw from my skin—like the forest itself exhaling me out of its lungs.
My wings trembled. Their silver translucence, once envied, now dimmed to frost. Tiny flakes of light drifted from them and vanished before they touched the ground.
So this is what exile feels like. But I will not be broken.
No storm, no fire—just emptiness.
The Queen's attendants stepped forward, their robes whispering against the crystal floor. One held the ceremonial branch, its silver bark etched with ancient sigils. I'd seen it before, used on criminals—those who betrayed the balance of magic.
Her gaze was cold. "You heard the summons of the sea, child. You let it touch your heart. You let it change you." I lifted my chin, defiance burning in my eyes. "You call me corrupted," I said, my voice barely steady. "But what is corruption, if not fear of what we do not understand?"
Her gaze was cold. "You let the sea touch your heart, child, and it changed you."
My pulse stuttered. The tide in my blood swayed to her words. The sea—I could still feel it, calling faintly even here, far from its shores.
I wanted to tell her that I never sought it, that the ocean's voice came unbidden, soft and sorrowful as my own dreams. But lies had no place here. Truth was the only weapon I had left.
"I didn't ask for its call," I whispered. "But I will not pretend I didn't hear it."
The branch pressed against my chest. Light burned. A surge of cold swept through me, unraveling the illusions that had always wrapped my skin in light. Beneath it, I felt the faint shimmer of blue pulse—like ocean water trapped under glass. The crowd recoiled.
So they see it too.
The Queen's voice broke the silence. "Leave this place, Lyra Moonshadow. You are no longer of our realm."
The magic holding me upright released. I stumbled back, my wings folding tight to my spine. I expected pain—rage, even—but what filled me instead was clarity.
As I turned toward the archway of light that marked the Court's edge, a breeze brushed my cheek, carrying the faintest taste of salt. The sea again—reaching for me, even here.
And for the first time, I didn't resist. I accepted my fate.
The light from Thornsong dimmed behind me, soft as the last breath of a dying star.
The moment I crossed the archway, the forest changed. The air outside the Court was colder, older—untainted by the polished enchantments of royal soil. The trees here didn't sing in harmony; they whispered, their bark dark with age and memory.
Each step away from the Court sent tremors through my magic, small ripples I couldn't still. I could still feel the imprint of the Queen's decree across my chest—a phantom ache, the echo of a spell meant to sever me from everything I once was.
You are no longer of our realm.
The words clung to me like frost.
I pressed a hand against my heart, feeling the faint hum of power beneath my skin. It wasn't gone—not completely. The forest might have turned its face from me, but my magic still breathed, restless and strange. It no longer sang the melody of leaf and light. It moved like water.
Somewhere ahead, I could hear it—the distant hush of waves against stone. Impossible, I thought. The sea lay days beyond Thornsong's borders. And yet… the sound grew stronger, like the rhythm of blood in my veins.
Was I being called—or hunted?
I paused at the edge of a cliff where the forest fell away to mist. Below, twilight stretched over a wild expanse of land that had no name. Exile. The in-between.
The wind carried the faint scent of salt and something deeper—storm and sorrow. It curled around me, teasing at my wings, coaxing them open. Light shimmered along their veins, faint but stubborn. They were broken in the eyes of Thornsong, but not dead.
I let the breeze lift them. For a moment, I imagined they remembered how to fly.
A flicker of silver danced at the edge of my vision—reflected moonlight or something more. I reached out instinctively, and the mist stirred, coiling into shapes I couldn't name. Water magic. Not mine, not yet. But familiar.
The ocean's voice came clearer now, soft but undeniable.
"You are not lost, little fae."
The whisper wasn't sound—it was sensation, a pulse deep in my chest that felt older than language.
My breath caught. I fell to my knees at the cliff's edge, hands sinking into damp soil. The forest's pulse was fading, its magic receding from me completely. But beneath the earth, another rhythm began to rise—slow, patient, eternal.
"The land rejects you… But I do not."
I closed my eyes, tears burning. The voice wasn't cruel or commanding. It felt… alive like a tide brushing against the shore of my soul.
I wanted to answer, to say I don't belong anywhere anymore. But the only sound that left my lips was a broken sigh carried off by the wind. When I opened my eyes again, the mist had thinned, revealing a faint path that wound down the cliffs toward a glimmer of blue light in the distance. I didn't question how it appeared.
The forest had closed its gates to me; the sea had opened its arms.
For the first time since my exile began, I felt something close to peace—terrifying and new.
I rose to my feet. Behind me, Thornsong's towers faded into the canopy, swallowed by distance and the shimmer of its enchantments. Ahead, the world stretched vast and unknown.
With each step I took, the ground seemed to pulse softer beneath my feet, until the soil darkened and gleamed like wet sand. My magic thrummed in response, matching the ocean's heartbeat.
If this is exile, I thought, then let it be where I begin again.