Queen of Thorne

Walking home from my shift at the bar, I drag my boots along the pavement, too tired to lift them properly. Ahead, the house I share with my foster parents sits under the broken yellow glow of the porch light — and the front door hangs half open. I stop cold. The buzzing of the light scrapes at my nerves, too loud in the dead silence. My heart stumbles, lungs tightening, throat going dry. We don’t live in a bad neighborhood. We don’t even lock the door. But it’s one a.m. No one should be awake. I shove the door wider and step inside.

The stench hits me first. Sulphur. Metal. Rot.

I gag, hand flying to my face, but it does nothing. The smell curls inside my skull, eating its way deeper. “Sarah?” My voice cracks, thin and pathetic against the empty hall. Nothing. No creak of floorboards. No ancient heater coughing to life. Only the sound of my own pulse hammering against my eardrums. I take another step. Then another. To the left— Blood. Splattered across the wall, thick rivers dragging down the faded paint to pool on the floorboards below. The paper bag slips from my hand, it hits the floor with a dull, cruel thud. Oranges scatter and roll across the floor, the bottle of cheap vodka spinning once before settling against my boot. I follow the smell. It coils tighter around me, thick enough to choke. She’s there.

Sarah.

Her body sprawled across the kitchen tiles, eyes stretched wide, mouth gaping like she’s still trying to scream. Blood everywhere. So much it paints the room in death. I fall to my knees beside her, fingers scrabbling at her throat, desperate to find anything — a flutter, a twitch, a lie. Cold. I press her wrist, search for a heartbeat, beg for it without words. Nothing. “Fuck,” I whisper. “No. No, no—fuck—” A wet crunch echoes down the hallway behind me. Something breathing. Slow. Heavy. Wrong. I stand. Somehow. My legs barely hold me, trembling under the weight of adrenaline tearing through my bloodstream, but I don’t stop — I can’t stop. I rip the top drawer open, hands fumbling, grabbing the biggest knife I can find, the cold handle biting into my palm. My feet move before my brain catches up, charging down the hall, each step a violent jolt through my body. I’m not sure if I’m in control anymore. Maybe I never was. I grab the bedroom door handle, grip it tight, breathing through the panic clawing up my throat. One breath. One chance. I throw the door open. Blood coats the carpet in thick, dark waves, and crouched over my father’s body — something.

Not human.

Its skin shimmers where the broken light touches it, a sick, wet gleam sliding over bones that jut at wrong angles. It twists its head toward me, mouth stretching impossibly wide, splitting its face into a grotesque snarl. Veins pulse across its skin, glowing red beneath the surface, alive with some sick rhythm I can’t understand. It snarls, low and guttural, and I stumble back a step. The knife slips from my fingers, clattering against the floor, useless. Tears spill down my cheeks, blurring everything. This is it. This is how it ends. I open my mouth and scream, the overhead lights explode in a shower of glass, shards raining down, slicing at my arms, catching in my hair. Electricity spits and crackles through the air, hissing with every breath I take. Still, I scream — louder, rawer, louder than I ever thought my lungs could manage — until my throat burns and my vision shakes. The monster watches, head tilting, fascinated. My skin crawls under its gaze, nerves screaming to run, to fight, to do something. Something buzzes behind me — low, deep, a vibration that rattles my ribs, I whip around. The kitchen is gone. In its place, a tear through space throbs against the air, swirling with red and gold light, seething with heat and pressure. The force of it pulls at me, humming in my blood, answering some ancient part of me that I don’t even understand. I glance back — The creature is close now. Too close. It reaches out a slimy tendril, stretching toward me. “Fuck this,” I snap, voice wrecked and shaking, and turn —

straight into the blinding, burning light.

I can’t tell if I’m falling or floating or if time even matters anymore. The air surges past me in waves of color, veins of light glowing in the dark pulsing with magic I can feel thrumming against my bones. My limbs twist uselessly, weightless. Every blink sends a violent shudder through my body, each breath another war against the warped gravity dragging at me from all directions. I try to scream. Nothing comes out, only silence and the endless rush of colors. Time bends around me, stretching thin until it snaps tight again, a cruel slingshot I can’t predict. My skin burns. My veins swell, too full, too fast. It feels like something inside me is cracking. A flash of green explodes across my vision — and then— Impact. Too fast to brace for. I slam into something hard and wooden. The crash splinters through the silence, and then I’m rolling, sinking into a pile of— Flowers? I blink against the sting in my eyes, brain clawing to make sense of anything. The scent wraps around me — sweet and sharp, heady and alive, so thick it coats the back of my throat. My hands sink into a mess of crushed stems and glowing petals, pollen sticking to my skin, making every hair on my arms rise. “What in the name of the vines—!” The scream jolts through me. I flinch hard enough to knock over another heap of flowers. A man towers over me, rage bleeding off him in waves. His skin is grey, his ears pointed, and his eyes — Pink. Not soft. Not human. Glowing. Furious. Alive. “Do you know how long it takes to cultivate fire orchids?!” he bellows, waving at the wreckage around me. “LOOK AT THIS!” I scramble to my feet, stomach lurching, my head spinning so fast I almost fall again. This isn’t my world. Every cell in my body screams it. The cobblestones beneath me shimmer faintly. Moss creeps between the cracks, glowing under my boots. The flower cart lies destroyed at my feet, orange pollen rising into the air in glittering clouds. Beyond the wreckage, shops. Twisting, alien trees tower past them, their bark glinting with gold and green veins, vines writhing lazily around their trunks, alive, aware. Where the fuck am I? A scream cuts through the air — high and terrified. Another follows. Heads snap toward me. Eyes widen. Whispers claw up around me, a thousand small, sharp knives. Pain bites along my ribs — sharp, sudden, wrong. I look down as blood blooms across my singlet, warm and sticky, leaking faster with every panicked breath. The crash. The landing. I didn’t even feel it until now. “Shit,” I hiss under my breath, staggering back a step. The yelling grows louder, sharper. Voices I can’t understand spit words like curses. I spin around, trying to find an escape, but the crowd presses closer. Children dart away from me, terror etched on their faces. My hand dives into my pocket on instinct. I close my fingers around the only familiar thing left — my phone. I yank it out. Tap the screen twice. The light sputters once, glitching into fractured patterns — then dies. Black. I barely have time to curse before a woman’s voice splits the crowd apart: “Guards!” Her scream is shrill, slicing through the chaos. “She’s voidborn!”

Voidborn.

The word cracks through the square like thunder. The crowd surges. Boots hammer the stone behind me. I turn, hope flickering for a second — maybe the guards will help — maybe someone will listen, but the man whose cart I destroyed stares at me like he’s already seen my death. Hands clamp onto my arms, iron-strong. I scream. Twist. Kick. Too strong. Vines coil around my wrists, wrapping fast, tightening until thorns pierce my skin, sharp and burning. “Let go!” I shout, fighting to break free. “I didn’t do anything—please, just let me explain!” No one listens. The crowd follows, shrieking and laughing, throwing shards of glass and rocks that crash against the stones around me. Something slams into the side of my head — a sharp, numbing blow, and my knees buckle, but the guards drag me upright, half-carrying me as they haul me up the crowded street. Their voices bark out words I don’t know, don’t understand — but I don’t need translation. The hate is plain enough. “Voidborn!” It echoes off every wall, every mouth, a chorus of damnation. My heart tries to tear itself free from my chest. The slice at my ribs throbs with every jolt of my body. The vines bite deeper into my wrists until I can barely feel my fingers. “You don’t understand!” I shout over the roar of the crowd. “I don’t belong here! Please—please help me get home!” No answer. Only hands dragging me forward, only the dark mouth of the building looming ahead. Tall. Cold. Black stone tangled in silver vines. The doors swing open without a touch. The guards drag me through, ignoring my kicking, my thrashing, my useless fight. The floor is slick beneath me as they shove me onto a chair bolted to the ground in a cell that stinks of mildew and cold magic. Before I can blink, they strap rune-lit cuffs over my wrists and ankles — burning cold against raw, torn skin. Blood seeps down my arms, dripping to the floor in slow, steady beats. The guards leave without a word. The door slams shut behind them as darkness swallows me whole.

I don’t know how long it is before the door groans open again. Time has folded itself into something shapeless here, slow and cruel. A tall man steps through, moving with the kind of deliberate grace that puts a fresh, sharp edge on my fear. He wears a fitted uniform, every line sharp, clean, merciless. His skin gleams a deep, unnatural blue under the gloomy lights. His hair, bone-white and tied in a tight knot at the base of his neck. He doesn’t look at me like I’m a person. He looks through me. Past me. “How did you get here?” he demands. His voice cuts the air cleanly — clipped, cold, accented in a way that twists the words wrong. I blink, still dazed, everything spinning. Blood loss drips confusion into my brain. “What—what are—?” He steps closer, shadow swallowing the small gap between us. “Who sent you?” His words sharpen. “Who are you working for?” My throat is dry, scraping raw when I swallow. I can barely think over the ringing in my skull. Nobody sent me. Nobody fucking sent me. “What is wrong with you people?” The words tumble out, cracked and trembling. “I don’t even know where I am!” His expression doesn’t twitch. Emotionless. Unmoved. “Lying will only end badly for you.” “I told you,” I rasp, fighting to swallow the panic swelling inside my ribs. “I’m not from here. I don’t even know what this place is—I just want to go home.” His lip twitches, curling into something that isn’t a smile, not really. More a slow, rotting amusement. He moves fast. His hand whips across my face— Crack. Pain bursts across my cheek, white-hot. My head jerks sideways, my mouth filling with the metallic taste of blood. “No one just stumbles into Lunthera,” he says, his voice infuriatingly smooth. “You’re lying. Poorly.” “I’m not—” Another slap. Harder. Tears prick my eyes, blurring everything. The cuffs around my wrists dig deeper as I twist against them, the runes searing hotter every time I try to move. “I’m from Earth,” I choke out. “A place called Earth. I swear!” He freezes. A long, slow breath leaking through clenched teeth. Then he laughs. Low, bitter, joyless. “Earth,” he says, almost tasting the word. He leans down, grabbing my chin in his ice-cold hand, forcing my face up to his. “Oh, we know that name. You humans always think you’re clever — slipping through cracks, dragging your filth where it doesn’t belong.” He leans closer still. His breath is hot, rancid, thick against my skin. “Your kind is dirt. Voidborn scum. Magicless, gutless little rats.” I yank my head back, gagging on the closeness. “I don’t even know what that means,” I whisper, the last shreds of courage burning away. “Please,” I beg. “Just send me home. I didn’t mean to come here — there was a monster — my family—” He drives his fist into my gut. Pain erupts, blinding. The breath is ripped from my lungs. I double over, gasping like a fish torn out of water. “I like when they beg,” he says casually, as if discussing the weather, rolling up his sleeves with slow, deliberate care. Another blow crashes across my face, harder than the last. The chair shudders under me, metal scraping against stone. “I’m not—” I splutter, blood slowly dripping from my lips. “I’m not anything. I don’t know what the fuck a Voidborn is—I didn’t choose this!” He crouches, close enough that his glowing pink eyes burn straight into mine. “Lies,” he murmurs. “But pretty ones.” His hand presses against my ribs— Right where the wound bleeds. He pushes down. Hard. I scream. The pain tears something loose inside me — a deep, buried thing that claws its way out. I can feel it moving under my skin — Buzzing, writhing, waking. The cuffs glow, red-hot against my wrists and ankles. The vines inked into my skin, the ones I’ve hidden my whole life — they blaze to life. Red and gold light bursts under my skin, veins twisting, growing brighter until my whole body hums with it. One breathless second—Silence. The cuffs snap apart, melting into puddles of slag at my feet. The burning metal hisses and curls across the wet stone. The man stumbles back, real fear flickering across his perfect, cruel face. “What—” he breathes. I stand. My legs shake but I stand. The air crackles around me, buzzing in rhythm with the pulse of my blood. I open my mouth. What comes out isn’t a scream. It’s a warcry. A guttural, broken, furious sound that rips straight out of my bones, shaking the air, shattering the walls. The room explodes. Stone and roots blast outward in a shockwave of red-gold light. A slab of ceiling crashes down onto him, pinning his leg. He howls, rage and terror twisting his beautiful face into something monstrous. I stagger forward, the power fading in smoky tendrils off my skin. The vines on my arms dim, the gold bleeding back into red.My hands are trembling, but I don’t look away. He coughs blood onto the floor, eyes wide, shining. “Impossible,” he croaks. I turn. My heart pounds harder than it ever has. My legs move before I tell them to.

I run.

Through the shattered wall, past the ruin, into the gloom of the wild forest— the one that pulses with light and breathes my name into the dark.