Aureline Thorne was never meant to rule.

She was the second daughter of King Caedric Thorne, a once-brilliant monarch whose bloodline bore the weight of a secret too ancient to scrub from history. A pact, forged centuries ago by Queen Alariel — the founder of Elaris — with a deathless being known only as the Chain Lord. Through this pact, the Thorneblood ruled for generations, gifted with strength, clarity, and unnatural control… but cursed to lose pieces of themselves in the process.

Aureline grew up in a palace of cold splendor, wrapped in velvet and silence. Her mother, Queen Lysandra, died when Aureline was young — taken by a wasting sickness, or perhaps by the slow corrosion of the curse. Her elder brother, Tavien, died in what the court called a hunting accident. Her sister was taken by the Silent Choir and never returned. Aureline was the only one left, groomed in secret to take the throne should her father fall.

He did.

Not to sword or poison — but to madness. Caedric became a whispering shade of a man, locking himself within the palace crypts, muttering to mirrors and flame. When the doors finally opened again, he was gone, and Aureline stood in his place.

She was nineteen.

From the moment of her coronation, the kingdom changed. What was once unstable became still. Roads were patrolled, laws codified, trade stabilized. Crime dwindled. The people called it peace. The nobles called it fear. The court spoke less and bowed lower.

And Aureline? She ruled with impeccable clarity — and no visible heart.

She devoted herself wholly to the kingdom. She wore iron instead of gold. She turned away every suitor, abandoned joy, and shaped the court into an extension of her will. She became an instrument of order, a queen of silence and stone. Her every decree bore the royal seal: the Iron Rose. Her every letter closed with the words: “Iron in Bloom.”

But beneath the silver and blue banners of Elaris, the curse lives on.

Aureline has felt it in her veins — in the cold that never leaves her fingers, in the prayers that echo with voices not her own, in the moments when her magic flickers with necrotic shadow. She hears the Chain Lord when she dreams. She sees his symbol drawn in ash on foreign ruins. She knows that his influence is , and that the price of her family’s pact may no longer be hers alone to bear.