Part One: Ignis Silvestris
PROLOGUE:
Three weeks had passed since Izzy walked across the mountain separating two worlds.
Three. Whole. Weeks.
Since her finger nails bled as she passed across jagged, icy rock. Since her mind felt like it had split into half as she realised her whole Goddess damned life was a lie. Three weeks since she had left Draven Pack as Izzy and entered a whole new Kingdom, Imperium Ignis Silvestris. Not as Izzy anymore, but as Isadora.
A lost princess. A whole-ass queen.
The realization still plagued her. She hadn’t grown up in a palace with pretty dresses and servants and family heirlooms hidden in vaults below their feet.
And now?
People all over the Kingdom knew her history. They knew her kingdom, her childhood and her parents… more than she did.
It felt like no matter where Izzy went in the castle, memories followed her of a time she had long ago forgotten.
She had people serve her breakfast, lunch and dinner. She had over fifty pairs of shoes, a dozen hair clips, ladies’ maids... the whole lot.
Izzy huffed then looked to the walls of her new bedroom. Long gone was the calm, grey hues of her and Kael’s suite in Draven. This room was more. More colour. More luxury. Just... more.
The whole castle was, really. Oil paintings embellished every inch of every wall. All of Kings, Queens and royal heirs from before. Her parents were amongst them. She was too, but that little girl looked confident and bold and certain and entirely different to how she felt today. Gone was that little girl with fire in her hair and eyes. Too much had happened. Too much had been lost. That little princess who knew who she was, still felt lost.
Izzy sighed.
People here in Imperium Ignis Silvestris looked at her the same way they did when she was a child. As though she were some living prophecy who would swoop in and save the day. If only they knew the truth… That everywhere she looked, people died and disaster followed. That was at least how Izzy viewed herself recently.
Sometimes she caught herself staring at the reflection in the mirror for longer than she liked. The light in her eyes was gone and her skin looked unusually pale despite the blaring sun this side of the mountain. Izzy looked like absolute shit. It was probably a reflection of how she felt.
Goddess, if Lori or Felix saw her, she knew exactly what they’d say. They’d tell her how she needed more sleep. Lori would probably faff and insist she drink herbal teas. Felix would pass a joke and try to lighten the mood, but underneath that all he’d be forcing her to train less or worry less. Then there would be someone else who’d never accept the mess she had become. Izzy bit back the tears that threatened to form. If Kael saw her…
Izzy shook her head against the soft pillow in her bed. Not now. Those thoughts couldn’t take over now. If she let them, she’d fall apart and so many people needed her. All those children in Draven…
Even more than that, an entire Kingdom had spent twenty years waiting for the moment their lost princess would find her way home. They’d held rituals and vigils weekly to summon the higher powers to guide their Ignifera back home.
Three weeks ago she did just that….
Some days, Izzy still wasn’t sure whether it was some weird dream. Like one of those fairytales, only more tragic and violent.
The devastation and the betrayal still haunted her dreams at night and turned anything pretty about her reality into a nightmare. Izzy woke before sunrise most mornings now, covered in sweat from the dreams that haunted her sleep and swollen on her cheeks from tears she didn’t even know she had shed. She still got up though. Still put on clothes and did what had to be done. The weight of expectation sat heavily on her shoulders. The need to do something. To do anything to quieten the demons in her that followed her from Draven to here.
