Chapter 1: The Oracle’s Warning, The Queen’s Fate
The air in the Cursed Grove didn’t feel like air. It was a thick, silvered syrup, smelling of wet earth and something older, like opened tombs. Selene’s boots sank into moss that gave way not with a crunch, but with a sigh. All around her, the gnarled trees bled. Slow, luminescent sap trickled down cracked bark, pooling on the ground in faintly glowing puddles that cast more shadow than light.
She was lost. One minute she’d been on the ridge, tracking the mountain cat that had been taking her village’s sheep. The next, a fog had rolled in—a fog that tasted of metal and whispers—and when it cleared, the familiar pines were gone. Replaced by this.
A root twisted around her ankle, not with the looseness of a vine, but with a deliberate, bone-like pressure. She yanked her foot free, heart hammering against her ribs. The roots here looked like skeletal hands, forever grasping at the air. She could almost hear them.
Actually, she could hear them.
Turn back, the wind seemed to murmur through the silver leaves. It wasn’t one voice, but many, layered over each other in a ghostly chorus. Turn back, daughter of dust.
“Shut up,” she muttered, pushing a heavy, sweat-damp braid over her shoulder. Her hand went to the hilt of her hunting knife. Solid. Real. The only real thing here.
She chose a direction and walked. The earth shifted subtly under her feet, a slow, grinding motion that made her stumble. It wasn’t leading her out. It was leading her deeper in.
After what felt like hours, the trees thinned into a clearing. In its center stood a single, massive tree, its trunk wide as her village’s meeting hall. And leaning against it, watching her with eyes that held the same pale glow as the sap, was an old woman.
Selene froze, knife half-drawn.
“Took you long enough,” the woman said. Her voice was like the roots: dry, cracked, and deep. She wore robes the color of the moss, blending into the grove itself. “My legs were going numb.”
“Who are you?” Selene’s voice was tighter than she wanted it to be.
“Morwen.” The woman pushed herself upright with a grunt. “And you are Selene. I’ve been waiting.”
“How do you know my name?”
“The trees know many things. They whisper about the girl who fights like a cornered wolf, who doesn’t know her own blood.” Morwen took a step closer, and Selene didn’t retreat. There was no malice in the woman’s gaze, only a deep, weary knowing. “Kael’s hunters are coming for you. They’re why the grove called you in. A hiding place, of sorts. Though a poor one.”
“Kael?” The name meant nothing, but it sparked a cold fear in her gut.
“The king who wears a crown of thorns and calls it power.” Morwen spit into the moss. “He smells your blood on the wind, child. The old blood. He wants to own it.”
Before Selene could demand answers, Morwen was in front of her, moving faster than something that old should. A cold, bony hand pressed against Selene’s forehead.
“Hey—!” Selene tried to jerk back, but the touch rooted her to the spot. A chill shot through her skull, not pain, but a vast, emptying clarity.
“Hush now,” Morwen whispered. Her eyes glazed over, seeing something else. “The goddess stirs in you. A spark in dry tinder. Can you feel her?”
Selene felt something, alright. A warmth, low in her belly, spiraling outward. A sudden, heavy ache bloomed in her chest, a tingling pressure that made her breath catch. It was alien, terrifying.
Morwen’s thumb stroked her temple. “The sign is waking. The milk will soon swell in your breasts. Proof you carry the line of Lycania. Proof you are hers.”
The words were insane. Obscene. Selene shoved the woman’s hand away, stumbling back, her face hot with a mix of anger and primal shame. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The truth,” Morwen said, simply. Her eyes were clear again, sharp. “You think this is about offspring? It’s about sovereignty. The magic of this land flows through a queen’s blood. It always has. Kael’s power is stolen, brittle. He can twist the grove, make the roots grab, but he can’t make them speak to him. You… they’ve been singing to you since you arrived.”
The chorus on the wind. The guiding, shifting earth.
“He will find you,” Morwen continued, her voice dropping low. “He’s already weaving his nets. He will claim you, child.” She leaned in, her next words a blade in the dark, meant only for Selene. “But whether as queen or prey… that is for you to decide.”
A branch snapped in the distance. Not a natural sound, but a sharp, deliberate crack.
Morwen’s head whipped toward the noise. “Too soon,” she hissed. She grabbed Selene’s arm, her grip surprisingly strong. “Come. The grove will hide us, but we must move.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. None of this makes sense!”
Another snap, closer this time. Then another, from a different direction. They were being encircled.
“Make sense later,” Morwen growled, tugging her toward the massive trunk. “Live now.”
The choice was gone. The feeling in Selene’s chest tightened, a dull, insistent throb echoing the sudden pound of her heart. It felt like a beacon. It felt like a trap she carried inside her own skin.
As Morwen pulled her into a crevice in the great tree that hadn’t been there a moment before, Selene took one last look at the clearing. Between the twisted, silvered trunks, she saw a flicker of movement. Not animal. Not human. Something clad in shadows darker than the grove’s deepest night, its form studded with the sharp, jagged points of a thorny crown.
Then the tree sighed, and the bark sealed shut around them, plunging them into a damp, breathing darkness. The last thing she heard was the ghostly chorus, now a frantic, overlapping warning in her mind.
He is here. He is here. He is here.