The word responsibility had not left Illyria's mind since that night. Even after returning to her chamber, even after the moon had crossed half the sky, it had not melted away. She sat by the window, watching the pale glow spill across the mountains, and in that quiet, Illyria knew—no one else could bear it. It coiled in her thoughts, a quiet serpent of truth, wrapping tighter each time she breathed. Her father's voice—steady, deep, carrying centuries of unspoken pain—had told her what no one else ever would.
This was meant for the next Dragon Queen… but you are here. You must carry it now.
It was heavier than any title she had ever been given. Not "princess," not "future queen" — those were crowns carved by birth. This was different. This was a mantle placed into her hands by blood and by choice.
Her father's eyes had made it clear — even without his words — that this burden could not be passed to Seraphine. It was already hers.
And Illyria, though still young by the measure of her people, accepted it without speaking it aloud to anyone.
She had stared into his ancient eyes, full of storms and stillness, and felt something within her shift. The weight was no longer abstract. It had a shape, a pulse, a heartbeat that now matched her own.
She was the future Queen. A hundred thoughts stirred like restless birds in her mind. She was the heir not only to the Queen's throne but to something far older, something veiled in secrets and guarded in the silence of her father's imprisonment. The Guardian's mantle. A duty that reached beyond crowns and banners. She had felt the weight of it the moment his eyes—eyes like fractured starlight—had locked on hers.
The Guardian's mantle could not belong to Seraphine—it had already chosen her. Perhaps it had always been hers, even before she had a name.
From that moment, Illyria decided she would not speak of it to anyone—not to Seraphine, not to the others, not to the soft shadows who moved through the palace. This burden was hers alone. And if she was to bear it, she would do so with hands that did not tremble.
If they knew, they would try to protect her from it. And this was not something she wished to be shielded from.
It was something she had to grow into.
---
From that day forward, her life split into two threads — the one the court could see, and the one she wove in secret, the face she wore under the sun, and the one she forged under the moon.
By daylight, she was the attentive princess: poised in meetings, diligent in lessons, obedient in sword training. But when those duties ended, she slipped away to practice magic until her fingers tingled and her lungs ached.
Illusion magic had been her starting point — fragile at first, the threads of light and shadow shivering and collapsing after a few breaths. But she pushed herself relentlessly.
She made the illusions hold longer, bend sharper, layer upon layer until they could mimic more than just shape or color. Her spells began to breathe, to hum faintly, to smell faintly of rain or ash depending on her will.
Mana was no longer something she called — it was something that answered her before she even spoke to it.
Illyria's body moved like a shadowless flame, dancing through the strict rituals of palace life. Lessons in etiquette. Courtly debates. Formal ceremonies. None knew that beneath the calm mask, her mind was racing, breaking apart every spell she had learned, rebuilding them into something sharper, swifter, stronger.
She practiced until her fingers ached and the veins in her arms burned with overdrawn mana. Illusion, fire, wind, shadow—she bent them all to her will, weaving them together in ways her tutors would never approve. She hunted for every scrap of magical knowledge hidden in the archives. Scrolls bound in dust. Runes half-forgotten by the scribes. Her mind became a tapestry of sigils and symbols, her will the needle that stitched them into new forms.
---
The palace believed her dedication came from a hunger to prove herself as heir. And in a way, it was true. But Illyria's aim was set far beyond the throne room.
She needed to be more than a ruler. She needed to be a Guardian.
---
Rest became an afterthought. Her body grew leaner, her movements sharper. And still, she was never satisfied. Every flaw, every slip of concentration, felt like a crack in the foundation of the role she had sworn to master.
When the sun dipped low and the night stretched thin over the world, she would slip away.
Through the art of Illusion Space, she carved a hidden path no guard could see, no courtier could sense.
The corridor beyond her chambers would fade into mist. The mist would part into a dark expanse. And then the light would appear—a thin, unbroken thread in the void, calling her forward.
A fold in reality, narrow and silent, where moonlight could not reach. It had taken her months to master the first veil, then years to refine it until it left no trace in the air behind her.
Beyond the fold waited her father—always there, as if the centuries had learned to obey his patience.
Her father's prison was no mere cell; it was a fragment of another realm folded into their own, a place where the air trembled with ancient power. The first time she had walked there after their meeting, her heart had beat like a war drum. But now, though it still trembled, it was steadier.
He would be waiting for her, sitting upon the low stone dais as though it were a throne carved from shadow. His gaze would soften only when it fell on her.
"Your hands are steadier tonight," he said one evening, his eyes glinting with approval. "But steadiness without control is like a river without banks—it will drown you before it carries you."
"I understand," she replied, though she knew understanding was not enough. She had to become the understanding.
"Your aura grows stronger," he said one night, his voice like deep earth shifting. "But your stance—your stance still carries hesitation."
"I… don't want to destroy more than I need to," she admitted. "Magic is not just a weapon. It can heal. Protect."
His lips curved faintly, almost proud. "A ruler who knows restraint is rarer than a ruler who knows war. But remember—restraint must never be born from fear."
And so, their lessons deepened. He taught her the art of layering spells so finely that they could weave between the strands of an enemy's magic without snapping. He made her unmake her own illusions and rebuild them until they breathed as though alive.
When the lessons slowed, they spoke of other things.
Sometimes, he would speak little of magic and more of her life. He asked about her earliest memory.
She told him about her birth—how she had been wrapped in a blanket that smelled faintly of rain, how the first thing she remembered seeing was the light through a stained glass window. She spoke of her early joys, of chasing after drifting flower petals in palace gardens, of the sound of Seraphine's laughter echoing against white marble halls.
Her father listened without interrupting, though now and then, a shadow passed behind his eyes—memories she could not see.
"The river behind our old manor," she told him once. "I was four. The water ran so clear that I thought if I stepped into it, I could walk right into the sky. My mother laughed when I said that."
His eyes shadowed at the mention of her mother. "She had that same dream, once."
"Do you remember her?" Illyria asked.
"I remember everything," he replied quietly. "And that is my curse."
Other nights, she would tell him of the little things—a festival's lantern lights, the strange books Seraphine would sneak into her room, the way frost formed patterns like dragon scales on the windows in winter. In return, he taught her spells so old they did not have names anymore. Spells whispered in the tongue of the First Flame.
---
Time did not move gently here. Days in the outer world became years. And years, centuries. In the measure of the human court, Illyria remained the poised, youthful princess. But in the measure of the soul, she was sharpening herself into something unyielding.
A hundred years slid by like ink across parchment. Each year, her magic grew more complex—illusion layered with truth, fire braided with shadow, storms bound in her palm. She did not merely learn spells; she wove them into living things, creatures of light and thought.
The world outside saw only her refinement—how her grace became heavier, how her silence seemed to hold storms. But in the space where her father waited, she was still the girl who listened, who asked questions, who laughed when he told her of the time he once disguised himself as a mortal just to taste the bread of a certain mountain village.
One night, after she completed an advanced illusion that wrapped the entire chamber in a moving forest, her father's expression shifted—pride, but also something older.
"You have crossed the threshold," he said. "Now, Illyria, you are no longer only my daughter. You are the Guardian in truth."
The words settled in her like a final seal.
She lowered her head slightly. "Then I will guard it with everything I am."
"Even if it costs you everything you love?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper.
She hesitated. But not for long. "Yes."
The smile that curved his lips was not joy—it was the smile of one who had carried the same answer once and lived to bear its scars.
---
And so, night after night, she returned. Morning after morning, she left. The realm went on, never knowing that in the quiet hours, its future was being carved in the hands of a girl who was no longer simply a princess.
She was becoming something more—something that could stand where her father could not, and keep the darkness at bay.
'She never knew what the responsibility was but she had already decided to accept it because she was the future Monarch of Spirit Realm and also to protect Seraphine.'
It was not a lament. It was a statement, clear as stone.
---
The years began to slip by without notice.
Illyria's restless training took her beyond palace walls. She sought ancient ruins where the air hummed with dormant magic, learned to read the language of trees older than the empire, and traded spells with wandering sorcerers who never learned her name.
Some nights, she returned to her father with dirt under her nails and windburn on her cheeks, recounting strange encounters—like the spirit of a weaver who spun illusions into fabric, or a river that sang when moonlight touched it.
"Magic is not just power," her father told her after such tales. "It is memory. The world remembers every spell ever cast, and every spell leaves something behind. Even you."
That thought settled deep within her.
And so she practiced harder. She learned to step between shadows and breathe fire without burning, to create worlds within illusions so convincing they could fool the senses entirely. Her mana grew denser, richer, until it felt like the air itself bent around her presence.
---
A hundred years passed in that strange, quiet rhythm.
She did not feel the weight of them—not in her body, nor in her resolve. Time became like water flowing beneath ice, unseen but moving all the same.
Every night, she passed through her illusion space to find her father waiting, his presence as constant as the stars.
One night, after a lesson in bending light into blades, he rested his hand on her shoulder. "You are almost ready."
The words were simple, but they rang like a bell inside her.
Almost ready—not for a battle, not for a throne, but for the truth of the crown itself.
---
When she returned to her chambers that dawn, she stood before her mirror. The girl who had once chased flower petals was gone. In her place stood someone carved by discipline and tempered by centuries—eyes deeper, stance steadier, heart quieter but unbroken.
She moved to the window. The first rays of morning brushed the horizon, and with them came a flock of white birds, gliding without sound.
Illyria watched them disappear into the light.
They did not need to see the wind to trust it would carry them.
And so, she thought, neither did she.