***?? CHAPTER FOUR***

  The burial ended at dusk.

  Ash from the torches drifted through the pace corridors like dying snow. The mourning chants faded, repced by whispers—fearful, sharp, poisonous.

  The Queen was gone, and the Blood Moon child remained.

  Inside the throne chamber, the infant Lydia cried for the first time since the ceremony began.

  The sound echoed too loudly.

  The King stood alone before the cradle.

  He had not held her during the burial. He had not looked at her.

  But now there was no crowd, no council, no citizens—only a father and the child prophecy had marked as it own.

  Her small fingers curled into the air, searching for the unknown.

  For a moment—just a moment—his grief nearly broke him.

  She had Elowen’s eyes. The same silver softness. The same quiet strength.

  Then the torches flickered.

  A sudden frost crept along the cradle’s edge.

  The King stepped back as the infant’s crying stopped abruptly. The air grew heavy. The faintest crack split across the marble floor beneath her.

  The prophecy.

  His jaw tightened.

  “Prepare the Eastern Tower,” he ordered the guards outside, voice hollow and iron at once. “No servants beyond the lower chambers. No visitors. No questions. She would be sin in her sixteen birthday— untill then keep her hidden.

  They hesitated—but obeyed.

  That night, Lydia was carried through silent corridors under heavy guard.

  The kingdom slept uneasily as the infant princess was pced within the highest chamber of the tower, swaddled in velvet and isotion.

  The doors were sealed.

  Below, the people whispered that it was mercy.

  Above, frost climbed the tower walls.

  And Lydia, too young to understand, slept beneath a sky that would never feel like her own.

  _______________________________________________________

  The tower has no seasons

  For those who lived beyond its walls, the world turned faithfully:

  Spring came with its flowers, and the mating season.

  Summer with its heat, and green valleys.

  Autumn with its dying gold, and mild wind.

  Winter with its suffocating snow, and whiting beauty.

  But to Lydia, locked high in her crooked cage of stone, time was ft, barely noticeable, like a circle – always revolving around itself. No changes made.

  A mirror with no reflection one could called it

  Lydia did not remember her mother—barely knowing her father.

  Instead...

  She remembered silence.

  The Eastern Tower wasn't a dungeon.

  'It was clean.'

  'Ordered.'

  'Carefully maintained.'

  'But it was lonely.'

  Sunlight entered through tall arched windows, yet never quite warmed the stone covering the tower.

  The servants left her food on a tray by the door. Bread. A bowl of broth. Once, an apple, bright and red, which she had stared at for an hour before biting into it, because its color seemed too alive to touch. They never spoke to her.

  The tray rattled against the stone, the lock clicked, and then footsteps hurried away down the tower stairs.

  'Always hurried.'

  'Always afraid.'

  They bowed but never lingered. No one stayed long enough to become familiar.

  She learned early that ughter echoed too loudly in that room.

  She learned that questions were often ignored.

  By the time she was four, she understood something was wrong with her — though no one said it aloud.

  Guards stood outside her chamber door at all hours.

  Not to protect her.

  To keep her in. She was never allowed

  Sometimes, at night, she pressed her ear to the door and listened to them whisper.

  “Blood Moon child.”

  “Sixteen.”

  "Cursed"

  She did not understand the word sixteen.

  But she knew it mattered.

  Outside the tower, the kingdom was changing.

  The harvests grew thinner, the kingdom was in chaos.

  The Greatfriy River that had once been calm, flooded once — disastrously, but unpredictably.

  Merchants compined of storms along trade routes.

  The people began lighting candles at their windows on Blood Moon anniversaries — not in celebration, but in warding.

  The Queen’s death had carved something out of the kingdom’s heart.

  And love, once abundant, had thinned down to almost nothing.

  And their faith – unheard of, almost extinct.

  King Aric rarely visited the tower.

  When he did, he stood stiffly, hands csped behind his back.

  “How is she?” he would ask the maid in charge of her

  “Alive, Your Majesty.”

  He would nod, but never check.

  He never held her in his hands, like normal father would.

  Never touched her hair,

  Never said her name softly.

  Lydia tried reaching out for him after she was three.

  She had heard from the servants that her father was the king.

  So one day she decided to sneak out to find him.

  She crawled to him the day he came to check on her, she crawled to his feet, and looked up at his eyes brown unlike hers.

  “Father,” she said softly.

  He looked at her.

  For one heartbeat, she saw something flicker in his eyes.

  Recognition.

  And indeed for a moment the king saw his queen in her.

  And for that he hated it.

  He dragged his foot away roughly, not caring about her wellbeing.

  Lydia flinched, confused.

  The King stood straight.

  “Take her away.”

  It was the first command, and word he had ever said to her.

  And It would not be the st.

  _________________________________________________________

  Machir returned quietly when she was four years old.

  Not as Prophet — in white robes.

  But in pin gray, hooded, carrying books wrapped in cloth.

  He asked permission to see the child under the pretense of spiritual observation.

  The King allowed it.

  Guilt makes men generous in strange ways.

  The first time Lydia saw him, she did not bow.

  She stared.

  “You are not afraid,” he observed gently.

  “Should I be?” she asked.

  He smiled faintly.

  “No.”

  He began visiting once a week.

  He brought her letters carved into wooden tiles.

  He taught her the alphabet before she knew what most children her age knew of py.

  She learned quickly.

  Hungrily, she wanted to prove she wasn't a waste.

  By five, she was reading simple texts.

  By six, she asked questions about prophecy.

  “Is it true I broke something?” she once asked.

  Machir’s expression did not shift.

  “No,” he said softly. “Fear broke something.”

  She studied him carefully.

  “Am I a curse?”

  He paused.

  Truth must be precise.

  “You are a choice,” he answered.

  She did not fully understand.

  But she remembered.

  Outside the tower, unrest grew quietly.

  A border dispute erupted into ashes.

  A warehouse fire consumed half a trade district.

  Nothing catastrophic.

  But enough for the people to have second thoughts.

  The people began to whisper that the curse was ripening.

  King Aric grew colder.

  He expanded the guard.

  Increased taxes.

  Reduced public appearances.

  Cuse by cuse, the prophecy unfolded.

  “If the crown fears her, it will break.”

  “If the people hate her, the curse will feed.”

  Inside the tower, Lydia’s emotions began affecting small things.

  When she grew frustrated over writing, ink would freeze at the tip of her quill.

  When she cried alone at night, frost crept along the window edges.

  She noticed, and she begins to understand something terrifying:

  'It listens to her emotions.'

  Responds to them as though it was alive, and that terrified her.

  She never told anyone.

  Except Machir.

  He did not look surprised.

  “It listens to you,” he said quietly.

  “What listens?”

  “Possibility.”

  She frowned. “That is not an answer.”

  He almost ughed.

  “You are sharper than they expect.”

  But deep down he knew

  'The curse it was not forcing destruction.

  It is reacting to the kingdom’s fear'

  When Lydia turned seven, something shifted.

  Machir’s visits grew quieter.

  Less frequent.

  His gaze lingered longer on the horizon outside her window.

  One evening, as twilight painted the sky violet, he brought no books.

  Only a small folded parchment.

  “I will not return after tonight,” he said.

  She went still, the walls of tower grew frost.

  “You are leaving?” she asked voice trembling.

  He saw the frost forming in–front of the window, but he had to go – staying here had already broken a rule.

  “Yes.”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  The question pierced him.

  “No,” he answered firmly. “You did everything right.”

  “Then why?”

  He stepped closer.

  For the first time, he pced a gentle hand over hers.

  “Because destiny must move without my shadow.”

  She did not understand.

  But she felt the loss already forming, the curse feeling her emotions reacted forming snow in the middle of summer.

  He handed her the parchment.

  “Keep this hidden. Read it only when you are ready.”

  She unfolded it slowly.

  Three words.

  Where the mountains reap.

  She frowned.

  “That does not make sense.”

  “It will,” he said.

  “When?”

  “When you decide to stop waiting. And choose for yourself"

  A strange sadness filled the room.

  “Will I see you again?” she asked.

  He looked at her — truly looked at her — as if memorizing her face.

  “Yes,” he said softly.

  “When history turns, until then try to learn how to control it"

  He left before she could ask more.

  The guards watched him descend the tower steps for the st time.

  The Prophet departed the capital within the week.

  Officially, he had completed his service.

  Unofficially, he had pnted something more dangerous than rebellion.

  Knowledge.

  Lydia stood at her window that night, parchment clutched in her hand.

  Below, the kingdom was filled with heavy snow.

  She did not cry, but felt the lost.

  So she learned how to control it — like he had said be part of it.

  slowly frost formed in delicate patterns along the gss, the rain dropped in uncertain occasion— But

  Beautiful.

  Controlled.

  Outside the pace walls, the nd grew harsher.

  Inside the tower, the girl grew sharper.

  Andsomewhere beyond the northern peaks, where jagged mountains cut the sky like broken crowns—

  Machir walked toward the horizon and stopped at the hill looking at the once great kingdom.

  "My part here is done....until then"

  A bright light took him away....... Up where no mortal shall ever be.

  His own part of the story ends here for now

  As for Lydia it was just the beginning......

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~