Elara sat in the corner of her small stone chamber, the coolness of the floor seeping through her thin robes. The single candle flickered beside her, its wavering light barely enough to chase away the darkness crowding the walls.
Her hands were clenched in her lap, trembling. Her heart had not stopped racing since the prince left her hours ago.
"You're not who you pretend to be."
His words echoed in her mind, looping over and over. They peeled back layers she wasn't ready to face. Everything inside her was trembling—not with fear, but with the weight of being seen.
She had survived by being invisible.
Now she was anything but.
The air felt tight in her chest. Her breath came in shallow bursts. Her stomach turned, and she pressed her forehead to her knees, curling in on herself like a wounded animal. Her body was here—in this cold room behind the servants' quarters—but her mind was somewhere else entirely.
Ash-colored eyes. Cheonhwa. The prince's voice. Her mother's voice. The flower. The burning.
She hadn't cried since the day the portal took her. Not even when she saw her mother's sleeping body. Not when she realized the truth. But now—here, alone, shaking—she could feel the wall inside her begin to crack.
"I'm not ready," she whispered into the dark.
But no one answered. No comforting hand reached for her. No kind voice called her name.
So the tears came—slow at first. Then harder. Not loud. Just silent sobs that bent her shoulders and made her small.
The pressure in her chest finally broke like a wave crashing against rock.
"I don't want this," she whispered. "I never asked for any of this…"
And yet, deep down, she knew that wasn't true. A small part of her—a quiet, fierce part—had always been waiting. For meaning. For power. For her story to begin.
Now it had.
A low hum stirred in the room. Elara blinked and looked up, her eyes swollen and wet. The candle beside her flickered violently, then steadied. She wiped her face and turned toward the low wooden table against the wall. On it sat a bowl of water she used to clean her face each night.
The water was glowing.
Not brightly. Just softly—like moonlight captured in a glass pool.
Elara crawled over to it, her tears forgotten. She sat back on her knees and stared at the bowl, her breathing slowing. The light inside the water shimmered, faintly swirling, like wind brushing the surface.
She reached out and placed her fingers just above it. She didn't touch it. She didn't have to.
The glow pulsed gently in rhythm with her heartbeat.
Something inside her stirred—something not human. Something ancient. Something waiting.
Her lips parted.
"Is this… me?" she whispered.
The bowl responded.
Tiny ripples danced across the surface, though her hand hadn't moved.
Elara jerked her hand back. The glow dimmed but didn't vanish.
She stared at it, heart pounding in awe and terror. Her magic. It was real. Not just a story Sae-Myung whispered in the forest. Not just a memory from a dying woman's dream.
It was real. It was inside her. And it was waking up.
Elara looked down at her trembling hands.
"What am I?" she whispered.
Suddenly, a memory surged forward—not her own, but a vision that overwhelmed her. She saw the forest of Sylara, golden light streaming through purple-leaved trees. A woman stood in the center of a circle of glowing stones—tall, beautiful, with silver in her hair and Elara's eyes. Her mother.
Han'Lia.
She stood with her arms raised, chanting in a voice that reverberated like music made of wind.
Cheonhwa bloomed on her chest—bright, radiant, alive.
Then the vision shifted.
A man in black robes stood above her, hand outstretched. He touched the flower—and it screamed. Not in sound, but in light. It flared, then withered, its petals falling like burning snow.
Han'Lia collapsed.
And then—the vision ended.
Elara gasped, falling backward, knocking over the candle. Darkness swallowed the room again.
She lay there, eyes wide, breath shallow.
"He took it," she whispered. "He didn't just steal her power. He killed the flower."
And now it was on his neck. The king wore it as a trophy. As a shield. As a throne.
Elara curled her hands into fists. Her fear was still there—but it had changed shape. It was becoming something sharper.
Resolve.
She sat up slowly and lit the candle again with trembling fingers. The glow from the bowl was fading, softening like a dream returning to sleep.
But she had seen enough.
She had felt it.
Her magic was real. And now it had touched the surface.
She wasn't ready.
But she was no longer running.
The air in the room shifted again—cooler, but less heavy. The shadows felt quieter. The silence no longer pressed against her.
Elara looked at her reflection in the water—glowing faintly, eyes swollen, but alive.
"I'll find the rest of you," she whispered to the light within. "Piece by piece."
Then she lay down, wrapping herself in the thin blanket, her heartbeat steady for the first time in hours.
Outside, the wind howled through the palace towers.
But inside the girl in the servant's room, a storm had begun to calm.
And in the bowl beside her, the water held its quiet light—waiting.