Where The Old Blood Sleeps

Thalorien had not always borne that name.

Once, it had been a cluster of human settlements-villages huddled against the wind and war. Then the fae had come. Not with conquest, but with curiosity. They'd watched, taught, shared. Magic hummed in the rivers, wove into the very roots of the trees. They showed the people how to speak with the land, not bend it.

When the fae vanished three centuries ago, they left no warning. Just silence. But the humans remembered. They renamed their kingdom in honour of the fae's parting gift.
Thalorien. The land that remembers.

Now, only faint bloodlines remain. Curled ears. Unusual strength. A glint of power in the right light. The rest is legend.
The sisters were a legacy of that union. Their mother had been a Guardian. Their father, too. They vanished five years ago with Queen Seris during the Solstice Disappearance, a tragedy that had left a Princess heir to a shattered crown.

That summer, everything had changed.
And now? Now the world expected them to train. To smile. To become Guardian's. To prove their worth in the ruins of a world half-forgotten.

And Rhian was done forgetting.