Fade

Chapter Two

Every night, as the Firerealm slept under the glow of molten stars, I was gently awakened from my slumber. The warmth of my vacant room and the comforting stillness was abruptly broken by the silent milieu of a shadowy figure. Zion, my personal guard, was silhouetted against the frame of my gilded chambers.

His dark, unreadable eyes peered at me, a tranquilizing gaze that cut through the heat of the realm. He beckoned me with an urgent, yet silent gesture, fueling my anticipation. Training in secrecy, a perilous dance we'd memorized by heart, played out under the clandestine darkness of the night. His loyalty to me outweighed his fealty to my mother, the Queen and King Hedrick, although I never called him by his unworthy title.

My abilities were hindered by a veil of enchanted embers. Their ethereal glow cast a mesmerizing yet confining aura throughout the chamber. The enchanted embers, a creation of the Queen, effectively restricted the full extent of my powers, allowing only a small fragment of each realm's abilities to manifest within me.

While I possessed the combined powers of the Fire, Ice, and Night Realms, the constricted space of my room limited these abilities to a mere flicker. With limited access to my powers, I could only tap into a fraction of their potential, unable to wield them effectively for substantial impact.

This constraint impacted not only my ability to defend myself but also my capacity to cause any significant damage. My powers were akin to a softly burning ember, gently casting a dim glow, rather than the raging inferno or icy brilliance they could unleash with full strength.

It wasn't normal to possess the combined powers. On a rare occasion, if two realms had a baby, the child could be born with abilities of both realms, but both would be very weak. In Alyanthi, most had arranged marriages based on power and what couples would provide the most powerful heir to help raise their own family status.

During my childhood, my mother had made a solemn vow that she would never impose an arranged marriage upon me. However, after she woke me from the coma that she had put me in at the age of seven, I woke to find I was betrothed to another. She insisted I had misunderstood her promise, and I couldn't help but believe it was also Hedrick's doing, as she proclaimed it was him that she found to break the spell that had put me in a coma. Now, more than a decade later, I couldn't help but notice that Alyanthi, the world around me, had transformed into something unrecognizable from what I had once known.

The biggest shock of all was finding out that while I slept, my mother managed to defeat the Nightrealm King, though she's kept the details of how exactly she did it shrouded in secrecy. The burden of the past two centuries haunted her, unsure when or if I would ever wake up from my slumber again. I couldn't hold any resentment towards her, understanding the weight of her responsibilities. She revealed that during my sleep, the Icerealm had attempted to seize more land and exploit any advantages they could find. With no heir to protect our realm, they saw it as an opportune moment. However, instead of succumbing to their advances, my mother and the Queen of the Icerealm struck a deal. It was decided that upon my awakening and reaching the age of marriage, twenty-four, I would join forces with the Queen's son, uniting our realms and forming an unassailable alliance with them in hopes of taking over the Nightrealm once and for all.

As I emerged from my slumber, the world I awakened to was a stark contrast to the one I had known before. Instead of unified alliances and a sense of mutual aid, the realms had become fragmented and divided. It was disheartening to witness the extent of the separation, as if bridges between realms had crumbled into nothingness. Though the Nightrealm held a notorious reputation for the cruel reign of its former king and the mistreatment of its subjects and other realms, I couldn't help but believe that not all Nightrealm inhabitants were inherently evil. My personal guard, a Nightborne, stood as living proof of this. As the sole Nightborne allowed entry into our realm, he demonstrated through his actions that goodness and loyalty knew no boundaries. I was determined to challenge the prevailing prejudices and rebuild the trust and unity that had been lost...but right now I knew there was nothing I could do. I wasn't strong enough to make a difference.