Orchid on Fire (Path Between Realms #1)

Chapter 1 Hidden Heir

HIDDEN HEIR

Ellandria’s heart thundered in her ribs, too loud for a night that demanded silence.

She crouched in the shadow of a crumbling archway, her breath rising in soft clouds before her face.

Stone walls climbed in jagged outlines around her, barely visible through the mist that clung like ghosts to the ancient streets of Dravaryn.

Beyond them, the castle loomed, unknowable and untouched by any map she had ever seen, its foundations guarded by wards older than language.

Gods. The relic had better be here.

She swore under her breath and pressed a hand to her side where the skin was torn from the night before.

Her muscles ached, her knee was slick with blood, and yet there was no time to measure the damage.

It had taken her years to make it this far into Dravaryn, and she would not falter now.

The stronghold was myth wrapped in granite, and everything beyond the city borders was rumored to be impenetrable, the castle most of all.

She had clawed her way across two kingdoms and countless miles of enemy territory. Rewired the very essence of herself to survive. And now, finally, here she was outside the castle they said no foreigner could reach. The castle that held secrets even the most powerful refused to speak aloud.

And she had no gods-damned plan for what came next.

All she knew was that the flame inside her, that deadly quiet truth she had nursed for years, was growing harder to contain.

The unfurling heat was not only her nerves fraying but her magic igniting.

Her hand flew to her collarbone, just beneath her cloak, where her tattoo curled like a thorn across her chest. She had waited for the mark, trained for it, longed for the day her fire would awaken, as was tradition among her people.

Among Orchid’s royal line, the ink was a symbol of pride, control, and power.

Now it pulsed beneath her fingers, warm and untamed, wrong in a way that unsettled her bones. She swore louder this time and yanked the cloak tighter.

No, not here. Not this far from home.

Magic belonged to the soil that birthed it, each kingdom’s unique abilities woven into its land.

Beyond those borders, her flame power should have gone quiet.

Stranger still was her mark, the tattooed sigil on her chest that should have been dormant so far from Orchid.

She should not feel the thrum of magic this deep in Dravaryn territory, familiar yet volatile, echoing the way it had before she learned to harness it.

Before she became dangerous in all the wrong ways. Perhaps she was unraveling.

Ella forced herself to focus, to make a plan. She pressed a trembling hand to the stone at her back, the cold seeping into her bones.

Don’t think. Don’t remember.

But her memories clawed upward anyway: orchid fields bathed in moonlight, the scent of her mother’s hair as she bent to kiss her forehead, a voice soft and amused,

“Ellandria, darling, if you don’t get those bare feet back inside, you’ll catch your death in the dew. And try to eat something more than air and pride, just once, to ease your mother’s heart.”

The memory caught in her chest, tainted with guilt for leaving without saying goodbye. She had always been a mother first and a queen second to Ella, which she loved. Her father had been the opposite, King Eryndor of Orchid before all else, duty before family, which she respected.

But growing up with a king instead of a father had left its cracks. She’d learned early that needing someone was a weakness no royal could afford, so she stopped needing anyone at all.

She longed for the simpler ache of her mother fussing over bare feet and forgotten meals. She missed the girl she had been then.

That warmth flashed and was gone.

Pride no longer drove her forward; now it was purpose.

Leaving Orchid had always been inevitable.

Living with the guilt of it was the part she hadn’t prepared for.

Staying would have cost more than her life.

It would have endangered her people, her bloodline, her future.

She had left in pursuit of a prophecy she had stumbled upon by accident, one that warned of the Veil sealing the realms now beginning to fracture.

Her parents, the Queen and King of Orchid, had never spoken of the prophecy, nor had any member of the royal council.

Perhaps they had not known. Or perhaps they had chosen silence, defying the fates to protect her.

Either way, they had not realized what Ellandria had discovered, words that altered her very being, until it was too late to stop their only daughter from leaving.

She had waited for a signal, a sign that time was running out. It came to her in a dream she barely remembered, save for one word, one name that lingered. Octavia.

The pull of the prophecy had been undeniable, and she knew then that she must go. So she left. She changed her name. She buried her power so deep that she forgot how it felt to let it breathe.

So far from the soil of Orchid, her strength had waned; she had not felt it spark or seen her sigil stir upon her chest in so long.

Until now.

Until this cursed kingdom began to wake a wild, old, and eager magic within her.

Her mark pulsed beneath the tattered fabric of her cloak.

Once, the tattoo that curved like thorns over her collarbone had glowed softly with ancestral magic.

Now it burned low and strange, and she gritted her teeth as she looked down.

Still invisible, yet it felt wrong, as though her sigil knew this soil, as though it remembered this land in ways she did not.

This kingdom should not recognize me.

The power inside her, fractured and feral, scraped against the edges of her mind, clawing to be free. Her control was slipping, her identity dissolving.

I am Ella. Just Ella. A nobody in this kingdom. Not Ellandria, Princess of Orchid. Not the flame-bound heir to a bloodline buried in burden and legacy.

She strangled the thoughts before they could take root. She had to forget the prophecy, the sealing of the realms, the banishment of the Fae.

This was not the time. She could not afford to think too loudly, not in a kingdom like this.

Because if anyone in Dravaryn was an Echobinder, they would seize the shape of her thoughts, and she would be ruined.

She wasn’t a Shield. She had no defenses, no way to guard her mind.

Ella had only been gifted with offensive power, and since her kingdom had banned the Claiming ritual for more than five hundred years, there was no chance of her ever gaining new abilities.

If the wrong person drew too close they would hear everything: the truth, the prophecy, and worse still, her name.

War between kingdoms would ignite before she ever set foot inside the Dravaryn castle.

Her parents had dedicated their lives to preventing another war, and though Ella had already abandoned them, she refused to fail them as well.

Not that she had much control over what could yet go wrong.

The Veil between realms was thinning, and magic itself was becoming unpredictable.

Taking a steadying breath, Ella swore that once she stepped beyond this barrier she would not think of her parents or Orchid again.

It was too dangerous, and besides, she didn’t even know if they still lived or what her kingdom had become in her absence.

The Dravaryns did not speak of Orchid and scraps of truth were rare, but she carried inside her what mattered.

An unforgettable purpose bound to the aching hope that she might see them again when this quest was completed was all that kept her moving.

Ella’s thoughts were never quiet, never still, and Dravaryn itself felt as though it were listening.

She shifted her weight, and pain exploded through her thigh, shooting down to her knee until she bit back a curse.

Her body was a map of wounds, each line etched in half-healed cuts, bruised joints, and skin stitched back together by luck alone, and still, she could not afford to stop moving.

The breach into Dravaryn’s capital had drained nearly everything she had left, and survival had demanded a web of lies, her quick charm, and a little violence. Necessary, of course.

Exhaling through her nose, she pressed a hand to the archway behind her, grounding herself once more in its cold, unyielding presence.

The castle loomed ahead, massive and shrouded in myth.

Ella had to get inside, fast. There was no time left to mend her wounds or allow her body to heal.

Though she stepped into complete darkness, she was certain something waited within the castle, a relic tied to the prophecy, and she could not afford to leave it buried.

She didn’t know what would happen once she found it, only that the red sun the prophecy spoke of was drawing near.

Weeks, at best. Whatever the relic was, she needed to reach it first, and give herself time to understand how it could save the mortal realm before that day arrived.

She closed her eyes and stilled her breath, and in the silence, the city itself possessed a heartbeat, steady and ancient, echoing beneath her skin.

Don’t stop now.

A whisper of prayer to the gods she wasn’t sure still existed, and she moved, quiet as snowfall, swift as the bite of a blade.

Ella reached the outer perimeter. The wards were supposed to begin farther in, yet here stood a tower, its dark frame rising high into the fog, vanishing into mist as though even the sky had grown weary.

At its base, a figure kept watch, posture loose and almost careless, as if no one had ever come this far.

And if the myths were true, no one had. She drew in the cold, the air biting her lungs.

If there was only one guard posted at the outer gate, then either the fates were showing her mercy, or it was a trap.

Ella froze, her breath fogging in the mist, clothes clinging wet with blood, fabric torn from clawing her way across the icy waste of a kingdom.

Every step she took seemed to scream of a foreigner, a trespasser, and it would only take one glimpse of her in this state and any Dravaryn would raise the alarm.

The guard shifted, lantern glow catching on the hard line of his jaw. He appeared muscular, medium build, and the uniform would fit her better than the ruins she wore. But she didn’t know what magic thrummed in his veins, what oath burned behind his eyes.

She had seconds to decide: kill him now and slip inside or hesitate and risk him striking first.

Her hand slid to the hilt at her thigh. When it came to battle, she would never let a man make the first choice.

Ella moved, and steel flashed. A breath, a gasp, and his lantern fell from his hand. The flame guttered out midair, and he was already falling by the time it struck the ground.

She caught his cloak before it hit the stone, heavy and lined with the Dravaryn crest, proof that she had crossed into the heart of the enemy at last.

She didn’t enjoy killing, but survival had no patience for hesitation, and he had the prophecy to blame for his death.