The Three Masteries

Sister Dumávariel said there were three things you had to master to become a queen.

The first was learning to act like a queen, because if you couldn't do that, you couldn't be one—at least not in the way she meant the word.

Unfortunately, Finnoola excelled at not acting like a queen. She spent most of her days avoiding the refinements Sister Dumávariel insisted upon: elaborate dress, delicate meal manners, the poised stillness expected at formal gatherings. Finnoola found all of it tedious. She wasn't disobedient—just fundamentally unsuited to the polished image her sister believed was essential.

They agreed to revisit the topic later.

The next point of mastery was learning to think like a queen.

This was the lesson her mind kept slipping past, no matter how she tried to hold it. She respected everyone, believed in kindness, and assumed people should simply be treated fairly. Dumávariel, by contrast, spoke of duty, structure, and the invisible architecture of influence that held a household together. Finnoola tried—truly—to understand it. She studied the protocols, memorized the patterns, and watched her sister's careful decisions with genuine curiosity.

But no matter how hard she worked, she found herself quietly resisting Dumávariel's traditional ways. The final—and by far the most important—skill to master was Seidhúrë, the magic of the Queens.

This was the one lesson Finnoola never dreaded. The shaping-current answered her before she even fully understood what she was asking. Her older sisters bent dream and waking together with practiced ease, but Finnoola felt the pulse of the magic as naturally as breath. It thrilled her. It made sense. It belonged to her as surely as her own heartbeat.

Sister Dumávariel insisted that seidr required wisdom, restraint, and a steady mind—that intention could cut sharper than a blade if mishandled. Finnoola listened to the words, but not the weight of them. She loved the sensation of the craft too much: the flicker beneath her skin, the quiet pressure of power waiting to shape itself, the sense that the world leaned closer whenever she reached for it.

Where the other lessons dragged, this one sang.

Seidhúrë felt alive, responsive, eager—almost playful.

Finnoola trusted that feeling.

Perhaps too much.

As the sun sank below the distant mountains, Finnoola stood in the heart of Noctǔrnal, where twilight never fully surrendered to night. The world itself seemed alive with magic. The grasslands didn't simply glow—they breathed light, each blade shimmering with an inner radiance that pulsed like a slow heartbeat.

In the fading light, the Luminarias began their nightly ritual, unfurling petals that shone with golden fire. The flowers didn't just bloom—they sang, a sound felt more than heard, thrumming through the air like a half-remembered melody. Beneath her feet, luminescent moss spread in intricate patterns, spiraling outward as if following some ancient design. And everywhere, tiny fey danced through the air—gossamer-winged creatures no larger than her thumb, trailing stardust as they wove between the blossoms in their nightly dance. Their laughter chimed like distant bells.

Finnoola drew in a slow breath, momentarily transfixed. The air carried the delicate sweetness of Luminarias and wild honey, touched with a subtle warmth—like cinnamon on the tongue. But threading through that beauty was something else entirely: a darker scent, earthy and ancient. Smoldering amber. Burned wood. The ghostly trace of dying embers.

That was what she'd been following.

Dragon.

The wonder drained from her face, replaced by focused determination. She moved through the glowing grasses with careful steps, mindful not to disturb the tiny fey who scattered at her approach like living sparks. Staying low, she crested a hill with a light leap. The breeze in her face was essential—if her quarry caught her scent or saw her shadow, she was finished.

Down the hill, a grove of fragrant leathholly trees swayed gently. The breeze carried that smoke-and-amber scent stronger now, acrid enough to cut through Noctǔrnal's sweetness. She spotted movement within the grove, the unnatural bend of a treetop betraying something large sheltering beneath.

Slipping off an outcrop of porous stone, she crawled closer, her movements smooth and deliberate. She longed to touch the dragon, but that would have to wait—first, she needed to familiarize it with her presence. It was her lifelong dream to ride a dragon, a dream her older sisters had forbidden after the war's losses made them cautious. But for Finnoola, it was a matter of pride. A personal rite of passage.

She could see it clearly now, just beyond the tree line. Mostly silver, but when it twitched or flexed its muscles, a cascade of color rippled across its undercoat like oil on water. Peering through the underbrush, she watched its movements. It seemed unsettled, turning its head toward a faint sound, nostrils flaring.

Despite her stealth skills—honed by years of evading her guardians' watchful eyes—Finnoola knew she was venturing into dangerous territory. The dragon's eyes glowed like molten embers, burning with a fiery intensity that could pierce the darkest night.

Firegazer, she thought. The name rose unbidden, as if the creature had whispered it to her.

Suddenly, the dragon's posture stiffened, its body becoming motionless as it sensed an unseen threat. Finnoola held her breath, muscles taut, while those molten eyes swept across the terrain. Her heart raced, but years of training kept her body still.

In an instant, the tranquil beauty of Nocturnàl shattered.

Firegazer surged into motion, launching into the air, its massive body cutting through the sky in a swift arc toward her. Finnoola reacted before thought could catch up—rolling hard to the side and sprinting toward an ancient root that broke through the hillside ahead, its bark dark and fissured with age. A hollow gaped beneath it where wood met earth, barely wide enough for her to pass.

Panic rose in her chest, then adrenaline surged, propelling her forward.

A flash of searing light exploded behind her, disorienting her senses. The ground trembled as the dragon crashed down, sending up a choking cloud of dust and debris. For a breathless moment, the beast prowled, massive claws raking across the earth in frustration. Its head snapped back and forth, nostrils flaring, a guttural growl rumbling from deep in its chest. Its tail lashed the air—

But Finnoola was gone, swallowed by light.

When her vision cleared, she found herself slumped against the root's great curve, a dizzying distance from where Firegazer now prowled. Her legs trembled, threatening to buckle, and a wave of exhaustion rolled over her like a lead weight. She blinked hard, her mind struggling to piece it together.

Had she just transited?

The thought sent a flicker of excitement through her, quickly smothered by the gnawing ache in her limbs and the dull throb behind her eyes. Whatever magic she had tapped into, it had drained her—leaving her unsteady and unsure how, or if, she could summon it again.

There was no time to linger. Shaking off the questions clawing at her mind, she squeezed into the hollow beneath the root, its walls of living wood pressing close around her as she descended into shadow. Behind her, Firegazer's roar shook the air, but the dragon did not follow. It circled above the hollow's entrance, flames licking uselessly at the edges of the ancient bark. The tree would not admit it. Whatever Firegazer was, it was not welcome here.

Finnoola pressed deeper, her torn palms finding purchase on the smooth inner wood. The passage narrowed, then opened, then narrowed again—breathing around her like the throat of a living thing. She half-climbed, half-slid down a curving slope where the grain of the wood guided her descent, until the dragon's fury faded to a distant rumble, then to silence.

As she stumbled downward, legs heavy and breath ragged, the enormity of what she'd done settled over her. She had transited. The realization sent her heart pounding—whether from exhilaration or sheer disbelief, she wasn't sure. Her steps slowed until finally she stopped, pressing her back against warm wood to catch her breath.

A quiet, incredulous laugh slipped out, shaky and raw.

Who would have thought she had that kind of magic inside her?

The thought sent a thrill through her. But beneath it lurked something else—a whisper at the edge of her mind, in a voice that sounded unsettlingly like Dumávariel's.

Magic like that never came without a price.

She emerged onto a branch.

Not a tunnel. Not a cave. A branch—vast beyond comprehension, stretching into darkness in both directions. Above her, more branches crossed and tangled, forming a canopy so dense that only faint pinpricks of starlight bled through. Below, the dark dropped away into nothing she could name.

Aetheria.

Her mother. The World Tree. The living structure that held the realms apart and bound them together.

Her sisters had warned her about this place. It was not forbidden, exactly, but it was not for her—not yet, not at her age. The deep branches were where the old magic lived, where the sap still glowed with the light of creation, where a careless step could send you spiraling into spaces between worlds. Young fey had been lost here. Some had returned changed. Others had not returned at all.

Finnoola steadied herself against the curve of the branch, her legs trembling. The transit had hollowed her out. She raised her hand to summon a flare, but exhaustion claimed the effort before it could take hold. She clenched her jaw and tried again. This time the light flickered to life, casting pale gold across the ridged bark—though her arm trembled with the effort of keeping it aloft.

She walked.

The branch beneath her feet was wide enough to hold a palace, yet she felt the immensity of the drop on either side. The bark was warm where her fingers brushed it—alive, aware, patient. At times smaller branches split off into the dark, leading to places she could not see. At other moments the way opened into broad hollows within the wood itself, chambers where the heartwood had softened into something almost tender.

Time slipped strangely here. She could not tell if she had walked minutes or hours, only that the air grew cooler as she moved, carrying the faint scent of sap and something older—like resin left to harden for a thousand years.

Her legs moved as though borrowed from someone else—heavy, reluctant, answering her commands a half-beat late.

She paused to rest in a hollow where the wood curved around her like a cupped palm. Just for a moment. Just until the black spots stopped swimming at the edges of her vision.

When she pressed on, she felt it: a subtle ripple traveling outward through the bark from where her fingers touched. It vanished into the dark with the slow certainty of something alive.

Aetheria knew she was here.

A shiver traced Finnoola's spine. The deeper she went, the more the tree seemed to lean toward her, as though listening for what she might do next.

Two paths lay ahead: one curling upward toward Moonstone Palace, where the branches grew dense and silver-veined with Dumávariel's careful tending, and the other descending into the deeper dark—toward the sealed place, the branch that had been closed beyond unclosing. The one place Finnoola had been expressly forbidden to approach.

Not because the seal might be broken, but because the wound beyond it—their lost homeworld, Armónialèth—could still be felt there. Aetheria had sealed it herself, her sisters said. A mother closing off a limb too painful to bear.

And somehow, it had something to do with Freya.

Finnoola stepped closer.

The bark beneath her feet grew smoother here, polished by age or grief or something she couldn't name. Her elder sisters would soon be traveling to that world for Freya's memorial, though none of them would meet her eyes when they said her name.

Now the darkness shifted—as if recognizing her.

As if it remembered Freya.

Shadows peeled back from the wood, retreating in a soft, precise sweep. The branch leaned toward her, waiting.

Her heart hammered.

Without meaning to, her foot lifted and hovered over the next step. A warmth rose from the depths—gentle, coaxing—like a breath she had known once in a dream. Like a mother calling a child home.

And then she felt it—

the faintest pull, subtle as a thought.

The branch sloped beneath her in a way she had never noticed before, tilting softly toward the sealed world below. It wasn't steep. It wasn't even obvious. But the tug was there—an inviting drift, a slipping of balance that urged her weight forward.

Finnoola swayed.

Perhaps that was why she swayed so easily—not the slope alone, but the hollowed-out feeling behind her ribs, the weight of spent magic dragging at her bones.

Her heel slid a fraction on the smooth bark, the shift so light she might have imagined it—yet her body leaned further, as if the tree wished to guide her, as if the branch remembered carrying someone else into that darkness long ago.

There was a moment—thin as a blade's edge—when she truly did not know whether she would go on.

Then her hand found the wood. Warm bark. Solid.

She steadied herself, breath ragged, and took a step back. Then another. Her legs agreed before her mind did—already turning, already choosing survival over curiosity.

The warmth from below faded. The shadows resettled. The branch exhaled, patient as it had been for a thousand years.

Not yet.

The words rose unbidden—not refusal, but promise.

Finnoola turned and climbed toward Moonstone Palace, her legs heavy, her mind already circling back to what she had almost done. The path would wait for her.

Only the when of it lay hidden.