The Caged Bird's Crown of Thorns

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An unexpected visitor broke into the palace of the Kingdom of Feritel: a little gray bird, its feathers scorched by fire.

She was captured with ease and locked in a golden cage in the queen's chambers.

A powerful magic array blazed inside the ornate golden cage, pinning the gray bird to the floor as she tried to escape. Golden-leaf vines grew down from the top of the cage and coiled around her limbs.

She hung her head, looking close to death.

"Lilia, my little thornbird..." The sweet yet venomous voice from her memories drew nearer. The queen approached step by step, dressed in a gorgeous, brightly colored robe of freshly shed turquoise-blue feathers. "Did you make a scene by breaking into the palace just so you could see me?"

A finger gently lifted Lilia's face through the bars. Her charred, tangled hair fell away, revealing an angelic face exactly like Queen Betilina's.

Except for her right eye.

Unlike the queen's icy blue starry eyes, hers was a terrifying black, empty as though the eye itself had been gouged out.

"Your Majesty, I want to leave Feritel," Lilia said, her voice hoarse, though its tone was almost identical to Betilina's.

It was a sunny afternoon many years later.

Sunlight pierced the gaps in the lush branches of the palace garden, scattering gold across the carefully trimmed greenery. Even the air was filled with a lazy warmth.

The queen walked toward an ornate golden cage deep in the garden, surrounded by white roses.

Golden-leaf vines draped gracefully from the top of the cage, twining through its bars and stretching all the way to the ground. The golden runes of the powerful magic array at the bottom of the cage glimmered without ever going out. The instant the queen approached, they flared brightly.

Queen Betilina touched the forbidden spell gemstone necklace at her throat, forged from Luminous Sea Stone, Witch's Tears, and the queen's own blood. The light array's restraints faded, and one or two turquoise-blue butterflies flew out of the cage.

Lilia, now a witch, sat leaning beside the cage window. Butterflies fluttered around her, and her bright eyes regarded Betilina with a smile.

"What new trick is this?" Betilina murmured, holding out a finger. A butterfly drifted down onto her pearly-white fingertip, its wings gently fluttering.

"Do you like it, my queen?" Lilia's eyes curved into a tender smile. She opened her palm toward Betilina, and more butterflies spread their shimmering wings and flew toward her.

"Your magic is fading. You worked so hard to gather a little strength, only to waste it on these useless spells?" Betilina chided her, but her cheeks flushed. Her lowered gaze secretly wandered to Lilia's smooth wrist, free of even a single scar.

During the brutal battle between humans and liches on the sea frontier, countless warriors died and countless kingdoms fell. Disguised as the queen, the witch led the Order of Light Knights against the enemy and fought until the last drop of blood had left her body. By the time Betilina arrived with reinforcements from the Heavenly Feather Clan, Lilia had been ravaged by magical backlash, reduced to a gaunt, skeletal husk.

No matter how many times Betilina looked at the body she had taken such pains to nurse back to health, she was still shaken and filled with heartache.

The queen had imprisoned her bird for a second time, but this time Lilia had no intention of leaving.

"It's not magic. It's a new potion I made from a venomous snake's fangs, a lizard's spine, a spider's sixth leg, and the antlers of a five-colored deer."

She was trapped in a tiny space, but love and flesh grew wild.

◆ The cover art is done, but I still can't come up with the blurb, aaaaaaah, this is so annoying. I'll just post two excerpts for now.

◆ Super-short doppelganger romance, with some forced confinement, locked-room scenes, and twisted, aggressive courtship.

◆ Cover design by my friend and artist @Guang Yiyi. Childhood character design card by artist @Asano.

Theme: Test fate and make a choice