Chapter 1 - Opening Chords

On a night when the third and fifth stars aligned with the moon, a girl was born.

The village elders called it an omen. But omens can be good or evil in nature. So, which was it?

Thandor and Eve Veralyn didn’t care. After years of longing, they’d been blessed with a child at last. Whether fate had delivered joy or sorrow, they welcomed their daughter with full hearts and tear-brightened eyes.

They named her Elanor, because the name danced like windchimes in spring—soft, lilting, and impossibly lovely. And as she grew, it became clear the name had chosen her as much as they had chosen it. Elanor Veralyn would one day become a name that echoed through the ages.

She showed promise early. By the age of five, her fingers moved with uncanny grace across the strings of her father’s lute. By seven, she had mastered the breath control to make the flute weep. At eight, she charmed a traveling harper into teaching her three secret melodies; by nine, she had improved on them.

Visitors to their small village often left with wide eyes and tearful smiles, convinced they'd witnessed a glimpse of something sacred. And by the time she turned ten, Elanor could hear a tune once, and play it back perfectly on any instrument within reach.

They called it a gift. Perfect pitch. Perfect memory. A musician’s blessing.

But when she was twelve, Elanor would learn the truth.
Perfect recall was also a curse.

A nobleman passed through their region, trailed by a retinue of eighty: guards clad in polished steel, servants in embroidered black, and courtesans perfumed like hothouse roses.

They called him Lord Malric Goldenvale.

His name shimmered with elegance and wealth. His demeanor did not.

From the moment his boots touched village soil, his disdain was evident. He found the place beneath him. Its thatched roofs offensive, its muddy paths intolerable. Even the air, he claimed, smelled of rot and dung. Never mind that the dung came mostly from his own horses.

The village elders, anxious not to offend, scrambled to offer what dignity they could. A feast was prepared from their meager stores. Jugglers were summoned. Dancers and firebreathers rehearsed until dusk. But their true hope rested in a final performance—the one they knew might impress even a man like Goldenvale.

Their town prodigy.

Elanor Veralyn.

She was twelve years old that winter’s night, wrapped in a cloak of deep green wool, the hem embroidered with tiny silver leaves her mother had stitched herself. Beneath the makeshift stage of lanterns and firelight, she stepped forward.

First came the lute. It was her father’s, polished lovingly for the occasion. She played a lament for a knight who had lost his love to time. Then came the harp, and with it, a ballad of far-off lands and unclaimed destinies. Her voice rose like mist and wind. Yearning and unstoppable.

And finally, as the flames in the town square dimmed to soft embers, she lifted her flute and began a melody so haunting, it seemed to echo from the stars themselves.

The crowd fell utterly still.

Not a breath could be heard. Not a whisper made.

Even the Lord, perched upon a velvet-cushioned chair with narrowed eyes and fingers laced in judgment, leaned forward.
Mesmerized.

When Elanor finished her performance, a single tear slid down her cheek and fell onto her cloak, leaving a tiny, dark stain that vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.

The silence held like a breath, until the tear was gone.

Then came the thunder.
The crowd surged to its feet, breaking into cheers that echoed across the square.

“Huzzah!”

“Cheers to the Genius of Willowmere!”

Lord Malric Goldenvale remained seated upon his cushion, motionless, his eyes fixed on Elanor with a gaze that betrayed something other than wonder.

When the ruckus faded, he turned to her parents.
“How much for the girl?”

Thandor blinked. “Sh… she’s not for sale, my Lord.”

Goldenvale’s lips curled into something that might have been a smile, if not for the venom in it.
“Everything is for sale, fool. How much? Five thousand quills?”

Gasps rippled through the nearby crowd.

“That’s enough to live on for a year,” someone whispered.

A woman beside him slapped his arm. “It’s their only daughter, you daft idiot!”

Thandor’s jaw tightened. He gestured for his wife to begin packing up Elanor’s instruments, his hands moving with deliberate calm.

Then he turned back to the nobleman.
“I’m sorry, my Lord. There is no price for which we would sell our daughter.”

He turned to help Eve gather their things, when he heard the chilling words.

“Then the price will be your heads.”

He turned to his guards.
“Take her and put the parents to death. NOW.”

There wasn’t even time to scream. Four men swooped in.

One guard snatched Elanor’s instruments.

Another swept her off her feet and held her fast beneath one arm as she kicked and thrashed.

The other two stepped forward with silent precision and drew their daggers.

Thandor and Eve Veralyn fell without a sound, blood seeping into the frost-hardened earth.

Panic erupted around them.

Screams tore through the village square as people scattered in every direction.
One of the elders stepped forward with trembling hands, only to fall with a spray of red as a blade opened their throat.

“Gather our things,” Malric said, brushing nonexistent dust from his pauldron. “We ride now. I’ve no intention of spending another minute in this shithole.”

His retinue sprang into action. In less than a half hour, their encampment was broken down, supplies packed into wagons, and horses mounted.

The elders, those who were left, stood numbly as the caravan passed them by.

Malric’s guard captain paused only long enough to toss a small coinpurse into the dirt before them.

“For your trouble,” he sneered. “Maybe fix your fucking roads.”

Then they rode off into the night.

And thus, Elanor Veralyn lost everything that mattered in the world in the span of a single, wretched hour.

Her tears dried before dawn.
All that remained was vengeance.