Chapter Five: Crown of Thorns

The wind sighed through the cradlewood trees, high above the forest floor where roots tangled like sleeping giants. Leona Belottie stood on a terrace of woven silverleaf branches, staring past the misted horizon.

Below her, the canopy stretched for miles — a living ocean of green, studded with sporeblossoms and the whispering wings of glimmerbirds.

From up here, the world looked calm.

But calm was just the mask nature wore before the teeth came out.

She adjusted the collar of her ceremonial cloak, fingers moving with the practiced ease of someone raised inside expectations. The armor she wore wasn’t meant for war — too polished, too symbolic — but it fit like skin all the same.

Even at home, the princess of the Sylvaen couldn’t afford fragility.

Not now.

Not with Kavessra looming on the horizon like a machine dreaming of conquest.

A knock echoed from the archway behind her.

“Your Highness,” said Eylin, her steward.

“The council is ready. They await your presence in the Rootlight Chamber.”

Leona didn’t turn.

“Do they await,” she asked, “or do they stall? There’s a difference.”

Eylin said nothing. Which was answer enough.

“I’ll be there shortly.”

The chamber pulsed with soft green light — bio-crystals grown into the very architecture, humming with low resonance. The walls themselves were alive, reacting subtly to mood and motion.

Today, they shimmered with unease.

The council was mid-argument.

Of course they were.

Trade routes. Border incursions. Ghost debts owed in blood or silver. And now, the envoy mission. Kavessra again, always Kavessra — sprawling and strange, close enough to breathe down their necks.

Some feared it.

Some saw opportunity.

Few had clarity.

None had vision.

Leona stood silent. Listening. Until—

“Princess Belottie,” said Councilor Rethen, oldest of the lot, voice like bark, “surely you see the danger of extending trust to the surface factions. Kavessra is chaos. And this envoy mission you insist on—”

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“—is necessary.”

Her voice didn’t rise.

But the room stilled.

She always had that effect — blade-straight posture, eyes like sharpened glass.

“The Hollowgrove cannot isolate forever,” she said.

“We are surrounded. If we don’t choose our place in this age, someone else will choose it for us.”

She didn’t wait for rebuttal.

Let them whisper. Let them cast sideways glances and pretend they weren’t clinging to the past like rot to a root.

When the council finally dissolved — not resolved, never resolved — Leona stepped away.

Not in retreat.

In precision.

She knew when a room stopped being worth her time.

The highpaths welcomed her in silence.

The scent of sunbloom moss. The copper tang of leaf-rot. The sound of her boots against braided vines.

This was her real palace. Not the throne chambers. Not the carved amphitheaters.

Here — in the living pulse of the forest — she could breathe.

And yet...

Even here, she was never alone.

There were always eyes.

Comparing. Measuring. Waiting to see what shape she would take next.

She paused at a balcony above the Heartglen Basin.

The view was beautiful.

But beauty was never enough.

She had stopped wishing for simple things long ago. Wanting was for others. Dreaming was for storybooks.

And yet…

Something inside her stirred. Restless. Like a vine coiled beneath bark.

Kavessra ticked beneath the surface of her thoughts — a broken clock of steel and smoke. Too loud. Too fast. Full of teeth.

But also: a chance.

To shape something. To challenge the old world before it collapsed under its own weight.

If the court wanted a symbol, she’d oblige.

But symbols were sharp things when wielded with intent.

The sky-ship waited at the canopy’s edge, nestled in a clearing where aetherroots glowed faintly in the moss. It shimmered silver and white — a diplomatic gift from the Skyborne Accord.

Leona stood before it, flanked by advisors and ceremonial guards. Their armor was ornate. Useless. The theater of empire.

They offered farewells in rehearsed tones.

"Safe travels."

"Wise dealings."

"Remember who you represent."

She nodded.

Stone-faced.

Not unkind.

Only one voice mattered.

Her mother.

“Do not mistake their chaos for weakness,” the Queen said.

“Kavessra is a storm pretending to be a city.”

Leona met her gaze, steady as stone.

“And we’ve weathered worse.”

A flicker of approval. Rare. Brittle. But real.

Her mother ruled with ice.

Leona had always wondered if she would need to master both.

She stepped aboard.

The guards did not follow.

This path was hers alone.

Inside the ship, the space was quiet. Austere.

Exactly what she requested.

No distractions. No softness.

Only the road forward.

As the craft lifted into the clouds, she didn’t look back.

The Hollowgrove didn’t need remembering.

It was written in her marrow.

But Kavessra?

Kavessra was unwritten.

A thousand tongues. A thousand knives. A city that devoured kings and queens and commoners without blinking.

She would not be devoured.

She would learn its shape.

And maybe, just maybe…

Shape it in return.

She sat at the cabin’s writing desk.

Unrolled parchment.

Picked up a pen.

And began a letter.

Not a report. Not a decree.

A truth.

To someone who would never read it.

"If I don’t return, it won’t be because I lost.

It will be because I finally chose what was worth standing for.

Tell them I did it with my eyes open.

Tell them I wasn’t afraid."

The sky-ship pierced the cloudline.

Behind her: forest and rootlight.

Ahead: steel. Smoke. Firelight.

Kavessra.