Crown of Thorns and Starlight

“Where shadows reign and stars remember.”

The crown was not meant to be worn.

It sat upon a stone altar, deep in the forest of Silharys, where moonlight dared not enter. Crafted from the bones of a long-dead star and bound together by thorns soaked in the blood of kings, it was both artifact and curse. And tonight, it was calling again.

Aelira stood before it, her hand hovering just inches above the crown. Her breath came in quiet clouds, white against the darkness. Behind her, the wind stirred the skeletal trees, whispering forgotten names through the dead leaves.

"Don't," came a voice from the shadows. Calen stepped forward, his silverblade drawn—not in threat, but in desperation. "You know what it did to your mother."

Aelira didn’t turn. Her eyes, glowing faintly with inherited starlight, were fixed on the crown. "And yet you brought me here."

Calen’s jaw tensed. "Because you insisted. I hoped… maybe you’d see it and change your mind."

Aelira finally looked at him. The stars in her eyes dimmed a little. "I’ve already changed my mind too many times. I ran from this. Hid from who I am. Look what it’s cost us."

He didn’t need to look. He saw it every night in the burned villages. In the children with eyes like empty wells. In the black banners of the Hollow King creeping closer to the last cities. And in her—the last descendant of the Celestine bloodline, the only one with the right to the crown, and the power to stop the dark.

"That crown kills what it touches," he said, stepping closer. "It turned your mother into a ghost. Your grandmother before her. You think you’ll be different?"

"I have to be."

She turned back to the altar. Her fingers traced the air above the crown. Even now, it sang to her—a silent, aching melody only she could hear. A song of stardust and sorrow, of thrones won and lost, of kingdoms birthed in fire and ended in whispers.

"The stars chose me, Calen," she said. "I was born under the eclipse. Marked by the comet. You’ve seen it—how light bends around me, how my blood glows when I’m angry. This isn’t just legacy. It’s destiny."

Calen shook his head. "Destiny is just a word people use to excuse their sacrifices."

Aelira gave a sad smile. "Then I’ll make mine count."

Before he could stop her, she reached forward and lifted the crown.

The thorns bit into her palms instantly. She flinched but didn’t cry out. Silver blood trickled down her wrists, glowing faintly in the moonless dark. The moment the crown touched her skin, the forest held its breath.

Above them, stars blinked to life where clouds had hidden them for weeks. The wind fell silent. And the song of the crown—no longer silent—swelled like a tide within her bones.

Visions poured into her: cities made of light, towers wrapped in shadow, dragons burning through the skies, her ancestors kneeling before thrones carved from moons. And then—her. Aelira, dressed in obsidian armor, wreathed in starlight, facing the Hollow King beneath a sky of falling stars.

The vision shattered. She collapsed to her knees, the crown still gripped in her hands.

Calen rushed to her side. "Aelira—!"

"I saw it," she whispered, trembling. "The war. The end. Everything."

He knelt beside her, helping her cradle the crown without cutting herself further. "And?"

"It ends with me," she said. "If I wear this… I might win. But I won't survive."

Silence.

Calen looked at her, truly looked—and saw not the frightened girl he’d found in the ruins of her family’s palace years ago, but the queen the stars had promised. Aelira of the Cometborn. Heir of the Celestine Flame. Crowned by pain, and chosen by the heavens.

"I’ll stand beside you," he said finally. "To the very end."

She smiled, soft and sad. "I know."

Aelira rose. The wounds on her hands already beginning to close, replaced by silvery scars in the shape of constellations. She placed the crown upon her brow.

And the stars screamed.

A blast of radiant light tore through the forest, knocking back the trees in a perfect circle around her. The vines recoiled. The sky cracked open, spilling constellations that moved—no, marched—across the heavens, like soldiers awakening from ancient slumber.

In the distance, something howled.

The Hollow King felt it. The world would never be the same again.

Aelira turned to Calen, her voice no longer her own, but echoing with the power of a hundred lifetimes:

"Let the night come. I am the last light. And I do not bow."

And with that, the girl was gone.

Only the Queen remained.