When Lyra vaen was born under the shivering stars, the midwives knew something was wrong... the echoes of her first cries rang with not one forbidden syllable, but two. The shivering stars hung around vaenmoor, which were flickering like dying embers in the vast night sky. They were never quite still, always shifting in restless constellation, as though they, too, were watching her.

  Lyra vaen was born under their cold, trembling gaze.

  The moment she took her first breath, the air around her seemed to fracture. The midwives, wise and weathered women of vaenmoor, stiffened in alarm. The world felt different. Something was wrong.

  The first cry of a newborn was usually a comforting sound, the mark of a new life entering the world. But when Lyra cried, her voice was not a single note - it was two.

  "Did you hear it?" Maelis gasped, her wrinkled hand clutching her pendant.

  "Twiice," Faye whispered, horror widening her eyes. "Two forbidden syllables..."

  Two forbidden syllable rang through the air, echoing against the walls of the small cottage. The midwives knew, instantly, what they had heard. It was a curse, a whisper of the broken stars, a sound that carried with it the weight of a fate that could never be unmade.

  The mother, pale and trembling, held her child close, unaware of the chaos unfolding around her. The midwives however, exchanged quick glances, their faces pale. They had seen fates like this before, and they knew the cost.

  The third midwife, who was quieter than the others, nodded grimly. Her fingers hovered over the new born as if afraid to touch her.

  "It cannot be," She muttered. "No child has carried two since-"

  "Since the sundering," Maelis finished grimly.

  They did not need to say more. The forbidden syllables had sealed the child's fate before her first cry had even finished. It was a curse not a blessing. And curses were not something the world took lightly.

  Outside, the window howled through the trees, as if the very earth itself trembled at the birth of this child. In the distance, the Black Hollow stirred, it's shadow stretching over Vaenmoor like a memory long buried.

  When the child was laid to sleep in the cradle, the midwives gathered together in the corner of the room. The eldest, Maelis, spoke in a low voice, "She is the one. I knew it the moment I heard her."

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  The second, Faye, shook her head. "You think it's her?" It's too early. The prophecy is a shadow, nothing but whispers in the dark."

  But Maelis, her weathered hands trembling, placed a hand over her heart. "No. The world is shifting. The mirrors are breaking. She has the Mark of the Thorned Spiral."

  Lyra's first moments in the world were not peaceful. Her tiny, delicate form nestled against her mother's chest, and the midwives marveled at her, watching for any sign of life beyond what was immediately obvious.

  For the first days, she was a baby like any other, with none of the strange powers the midwives had feared. But the power was there, barely a whisper in the air, like the wind before a storm.

  Her mother gazed down at her, unknowing, as Lyra slept peacefully in the warmth of the cradle. But the midwives never fully relaxed. They knew what Lyra's birth meant, even if the rest of the world did not.

  As the day went by, they began to notice the subtle signs: the way Lyra's gaze would fixate on nothing, staring at the distance shadows with an intensity that felt too... knowing. The way her tiny hands twitched, reaching for things just out of her grasp, as if trying to touch something beyond the room. Something unreachable.

  Maelis, Faye and the third midwife, who had yet to speak, exchanged worried glances. They had seen children before who had a spark of magic, but none like this.

  One fateful night, the child awoke from her slumber, her cry splitting the air like a cracked bell. It was the sound of something otherworldly, something that carried with it a weight, a promise, and a curse.

  The midwives rushed to the cradle, and in the dim light of the candle, they saw it -- Lyra's tiny form thrashing in her bed, eyes wide and unfocused. The air in the room grew still, the temperature dropping as though the room itself held its breath. Then as quickly as it had begun, Lyra's cry stopped.

  She lay silent, her breathing shallow, as if she had been shaken by some unseen force.

  But it was not the room's silence that worried the midwives - it was the magic they could feel in the very air. A dark energy that had not been there before.

  They gathered close around the cradle, murmuring in hushed tones, praying for the child's safety. But the midwives knew, as they had known all along: this child would never be ordinary.

  At that moment, Lyra's hand, still tiny and fragile, clenched into a fist. The power was there again, more tangible than before, like a storm about to break. The air around her began to pulse, as if the very earth responded to her cries.

  And in that moment, they understood the truth.

  Lyra Vaen was not just another child born under the shivering stars. She was the one foretold in the prophecy, the one whose destiny would either save or destroy them all.

  The midwives looked at each other, fear and uncertainty in their eyes. The Thorned Spiral was a force beyond their understanding, and Lyra had already begun to stir it. The cost of magic - true magic - was something few survived, and none of them predict what would come next.

  As Lyra drifted back into sleep, the world outside continued it's indifferent turning. But inside the small cottage, the future had already been decided.

  For better or for worse, the broken fate had already begun.

  Beyond the cracked window, unseen by the midwives, a shape loomed at the edge of the woods - tall, silent, waiting,. The first whisper curled into the night, not from human lips, but from the darkness itself: "She has come."