Princess Aeri's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Princess Aeri folded her black wings tight and climbed the last stair to her tower room. On her desk lay a map she had studied for months. She had marked every forest, mountain, and shore in the kingdom. She had found nothing. No winged fae. No sign of her own kind. She traced the coastline with one finger and felt the same old ache. Somewhere out there, others like her had to exist. She had never seen a single one. A knock came at her door. Queen Aileen stepped inside, her braid over one shoulder, a small wooden box in her hands. The queen had raised Aeri since the day a loyal king carried her home before hunters could reach her. Aeri loved her. But the queen had no wings, and neither did anyone in this castle. "You've stopped eating again," Aileen said. She set the box on the desk. "Your father and I agreed. It's time you had this." Aeri lifted the lid. Inside lay a torn scrap of dark cloth and a single black feather. The feather matched her own. "We found these wrapped around you," the queen said. "We never told you. We feared you would leave us." Aeri turned the cloth over. Faded thread ran along one edge, stitched into a pattern of peaks. She spread her map flat and searched. The same jagged peaks rose along the northern range, past the last village she had ever mapped. "The mountains," Aeri whispered. "I only ever searched the valleys." King Arven filled the doorway then, gray in his dark beard, his silver crown catching the light. He must have followed the queen up. He looked at the open box and his shoulders fell. "So you've told her," he said quietly. "She deserved the truth," Aileen answered. Arven crossed the room and rested a hand on Aeri's wing. He had never once flinched from them. "Those peaks are about a week flight south, I do not think any man I know has ever stepped foot there. The high crags. No human road reaches them. That is why we never went." His jaw tightened. Aeri gripped the feather. Her kind lived where no one could follow on foot. Only wings could carry her there. Her wings. "Then I fly," she said. Arven and Aileen traded a look. The king nodded slowly. "We will not chain you here. But the northern crags are wild. We do not know what waits." Aeri pinned the scrap of cloth to her map, over the peaks. For the first time, her search had a place. Not a whole kingdom of empty ground, but a single point on a map. She would leave at dawn. She stepped onto her balcony and looked north, where the far mountains cut a dark line against the sky. Her kin were up there. And she had no idea if they would welcome her, or drive her back.