The Unwritten Princess

The Unwritten Princess

Manda Grey · Ongoing · 82.7k Words

944
Hot
1.8k
Views
177
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

I was born the year the Rift opened. They said I would close it. They were wrong about so many things.

My name is Mia, and everything I touch is dying.

The flowers beneath my mother's window turned black overnight. The herbs I gathered at dawn rotted in my hands. When the court wizard finally told me the truth—that someone cursed me, that my presence would kill everyone I love—I realized the prophecy everyone believed was never meant to save the kingdom. It was meant to destroy me.

So I ran. Not to fulfill some destiny, but to survive it.

Now I'm traveling with a hunter who lost his companions to the same curse I carry, chasing fragments of a prophecy the Fae sing differently. An elf took a baby from the palace the night I was born. And somewhere between the lies I've been told and the truth I'm hunting, I'm starting to suspect: What if I'm not the princess from the prophecy at all?

Chapter 1

The herb vendor had bad teeth and a worse memory. I'd factored both into my calculations.

"Moonpetal," I said, keeping my voice level. "The whole bundle. Not the ones you've got displayed up front."

He squinted at me. I wore a brown wool cloak, unremarkable, the hood pulled low enough—low enough to hide the honey-brown hair that caused me so much trouble.

Behind us, Thornside Market operated in its usual morning fashion: half-awake, lazy, the air thick with last night's rain-smell and the lingering stench of livestock that hadn't yet been driven off.

"The ones in back cost more," he said.

"The ones in back aren't rotting."

He looked at me for a moment, then reached behind without another word.

This was my third year buying herbs at Thornside Market. I knew which stalls opened earliest, which herb sellers watered down their tinctures, which ones hid their quality goods behind inferior stock—I'd figured it all out. I also knew that no one here recognized me. The people who attended court ceremonies and the people who set up stalls before dawn were two entirely different breeds, and they held each other in mutual contempt. The people moving through these streets looked straight through me and others like me, as if seeing nothing at all.

Perhaps disguising myself in the market was entirely unnecessary—who would expect to find a princess here?

But none of that mattered. For me, this was one of the few places in the city that still carried a sense of reality and freedom.

Herbalism was something I genuinely enjoyed, unrelated to status or duty—purely that feeling when you first encounter something and know "this is mine." The dried petals and roots, the minute annotations, the thick volumes of pharmacopeia—I could spend an entire day among them without growing bored. What truly wearied me were those magic incantations that the nobility so fervently pursued.

Of course, this pure interest now had something else mixed into it, making everything far more urgent.

I stuffed the Moonpetal into my cloth bag and tossed over a small pouch of copper coins. The vendor didn't count them, just weighed the pouch in his hand and pocketed it. This had always been our unspoken agreement—he didn't ask questions, I didn't short-change him.

On the way back, I skirted around a pushcart, squeezed between two pickled fish stalls, and followed the narrow passage inward. A beggar caught the hem of my robe—his eyes were apparently still functional enough to spot the court shoes I hadn't had time to change, the gold thread on the toe that my robe couldn't conceal.

I sighed, dropped a silver coin, and while he bent to retrieve it, I disappeared into the crowd.

I walked more carefully now, head down, mindful not to reveal my identity. I could see patrol soldiers ahead, so I lowered my head even further.

Passing a cargo wagon, I noticed a young woman with a sleeping infant on her back arguing with an apprentice boy.

The boy spoke with a maturity that didn't match his age.

"Last year I had you repair this same wheel, and it wasn't this price," the woman said, her voice low, her body still swaying gently to avoid waking the child in her arms.

"Inflation, ma'am," the boy said matter-of-factly.

I stopped at a nearby stall, pretending to examine fabric, speaking as if to myself but loud enough for those nearby to hear. "Inflation is three percent. The guild's standard pricing has been posted on the South Gate notice board all winter."

The boy turned around—I could imagine his irritation. The woman turned too. I didn't wait for her thanks and had already moved on.

My tutor would probably call this meddling. Father would say haggling with petty merchants was beneath my station.

Mother would just laugh when she heard me discussing axle prices.

The thought surfaced without warning, like all such thoughts did. I set it aside, along with the bundle of Moonpetal, with the same force—I had business to attend to, this wasn't the time for sentimentality.

I was at the third stall—a narrow, slightly crooked stall wedged between a butcher and a vendor selling identical antiques—when I heard their voices.

Two men stood at the mouth of the alley behind the stall. They weren't exactly hiding, just using the tone people use when they think no one around them is listening.

"—the committee has convened three times already."

"Any progress?"

"Progress? Nothing will happen. The King won't act unless absolutely necessary."

An irritating pause.

"That's the King's precious daughter, raised in the palace, never seen anything—she couldn't possibly do what's required. Besides, I heard she knows she's mediocre, probably get herself killed on the road."

"Who cares about that? The prophecy says it's her."

"Prophecy? There are so many prophecies in the world, how do you know they all come true? And some prophecies get twisted beyond recognition..."

I stood motionless, holding a bundle of dried lavender I didn't need, examining it carefully while my mind was elsewhere. The vendor held a fan, waving it so slowly it couldn't have driven away even a fly—he seemed to know I wasn't planning to buy, so he couldn't be bothered with me.

The two men shifted their positions slightly, still not looking at me.

"If she can't close the rift," the first man said, "then the rift simply can't be closed. It's that simple."

"Easy for you to say. Last year monsters attacked my territory, lost half my livestock. There better be a solution to this, or else..."

"Alright, I know what you mean."

The second man said something else in a low voice that I couldn't catch. Then the first man said, "The King knows. I think he's known for a long time. He's just—"

They moved. The alley swallowed their voices.

I set down the lavender. I bought another bundle of something I didn't need, paid for it, then left the stall at the same pace I'd walked all morning.

This city was full of prophecies, just like rumors—most of them incomplete, like riddles waiting to be solved. After the rifts appeared, everyone craved a savior. This was the capital; most of these people had never seen a monster. Prophecy was the only thing they could rely on.

Who doesn't want a peaceful life? I thought as I walked toward the castle.

I made the rounds of several herb stalls in the western section of the market—none had Silverthread. It wasn't just one shop's problem. I noted it in my small journal, adding "Eastern route" in parentheses—supply disruption, trouble on the eastern road. My journal was filled with dense writing: herb varieties, tincture sources, names of useful physicians. For two years, I'd even recorded every formula I could find in the court archives, yet none had solved the fundamental problem.

But I hadn't given up, still writing, still recording.

Rendell found me at the East Gate, looking like he'd been searching for a long time. After all these years of knowing me, he still couldn't predict when I'd return from the market.

He wore civilian clothes, but not convincingly enough. Rendell carried himself like a knight no matter what he wore—posture too upright, gaze constantly scanning for potential dangers, his whole bearing suggesting someone ready to take a blade at any moment. He recognized me from a distance and walked over unhurriedly, maintaining a respectful distance at my side.

He was half a year older than me and had followed me like a shadow since we were seven. He was handsome, but not in the carefully groomed, powdered way of courtiers. His bone structure was strong, eyes a deep brown, hair casually tied back with a few strands falling across his forehead. But he paid little attention to his appearance—he probably spent a hundred times more hours maintaining his sword than looking in mirrors.

"You could tell me when you're going out," he said, matching my pace, his tone softer than he used with most people, something I'd never quite liked—as if speaking to a child who needed coaxing.

"I knew you'd follow anyway."

"Of course, because you're a princess, you need—"

"I need quiet."

Perhaps my tone was too sharp. He fell silent for a moment, then changed the subject. "His Majesty has scheduled a garden inspection for noon today. The head gardener is already nervous."

"He's always nervous."

"This time is different. There are some things you need to know."

I adjusted the bag on my shoulder—the Moonpetal had shifted and was digging into my ribs, much like this conversation. "I'll return."

He seemed relieved and nodded. Lecturing me was pointless, that much was clear.

"I heard something at the market," I said once we'd passed through the palace gates and I'd pushed back my hood, my flattened hair spilling free. "People talking about the rifts, about prophecies, about the princess who's supposed to save the world."

"The marketplace is crowded and full of gossip—people say all kinds of things," he said.

"They said time is running out, that the council has met three times with no results."

His expression didn't change, as if discussing the weather. "Those words are meant to calm the populace, nothing to worry about."

"Easy for you to say when it's not about you."

We passed through the shadow of the East Gate into the morning light on the other side. Serving maids curtsied when they saw me. The palace's central district began here—wider roads, taller buildings, and far more tedious.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," Rendell finally said, his voice carrying concern I could detect. "Besides, His Majesty's advisors know what they're doing."

That wasn't an answer. We both knew it. Some things don't disappear just because you don't want them.

"No matter how many meetings they hold, the time mentioned in the prophecy is approaching. No one can stop it—not you, not my father," I said quietly, not with resignation but with determination. "I have to do this."

His jaw tightened slightly. He said nothing more.

He had patrol duty and couldn't follow me into the palace proper. When we parted in the corridor, his hand brushed lightly against my wrist, as if he wanted to say something, but I walked away without looking back.

"Farewell, Your Highness," his voice lingered behind me, carrying a note of melancholy.

Mother's room was on the third floor of the east wing, facing the garden so she could see the light when she woke.

I didn't go in. I stood against the corridor wall, clutching my cloth bag, listening through the door crack to the silence inside—soft footsteps, something being poured into a cup, the physician's low voice devoid of any emotion.

I stood there for a long time. Mother's soft cough came from within, and my grip unconsciously tightened.

Finally, I left the wall and returned to my own room.

I spread the newly purchased herbs on my desk alongside what I hadn't used before. The Moonpetal went into a paper sleeve, the Silverthread entry was marked delayed, and as I was recording the total inventory, I suddenly noticed the Moonpetal bundle.

I had put it in the paper sleeve an hour ago. Fresh, dry, aside from some pressure marks on one side, perfectly intact everywhere else.

Now its edges were black.

Not withered—the pitch black of rot, as if something had passed through the plant's fibers, taking the color with it. I touched the blackened edge with my fingertip.

The flower disintegrated completely.

I sat there, hand still extended, fingertip stained with dark powder, staring at what remained before me.

I had paid full price for that.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

Omega Bound

Omega Bound

2m Views · Completed · Veronica White
Ayla Frost is a beautiful, rare omega. Kidnapped, tortured, and trafficked to rogue clans and corrupt alphas to do with as they pleased.  Kept alive in her cage, broken and abandoned by her wolf, she becomes mute and has given up on hope for a better life until one explosion changes everything. 

Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life. 

Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother

Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother

2.6m Views · Ongoing · Harper Rivers
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother.

"What is wrong with me?

Why does being near him make my skin feel too tight, like I’m wearing a sweater two sizes too small?

It’s just newness, I tell myself firmly.

He’s my boyfirend’s brother.

This is Tyler’s family.

I’m not going to let one cold stare undo that.

**

As a ballet dancer, My life looks perfect—scholarship, starring role, sweet boyfriend Tyler. Until Tyler shows his true colors and his older brother, Asher, comes home.

Asher is a Navy veteran with battle scars and zero patience. He calls me "princess" like it's an insult. I can't stand him.

When My ankle injury forces her to recover at the family lake house, I‘m stuck with both brothers. What starts as mutual hatred slowly turns into something forbidden.

I'm falling for my boyfriend's brother.

**

I hate girls like her.

Entitled.

Delicate.

And still—

Still.

The image of her standing in the doorway, clutching her cardigan tighter around her narrow shoulders, trying to smile through the awkwardness, won’t leave me.

Neither does the memory of Tyler. Leaving her here without a second thought.

I shouldn’t care.

I don’t care.

It’s not my problem if Tyler’s an idiot.

It’s not my business if some spoiled little princess has to walk home in the dark.

I’m not here to rescue anyone.

Especially not her.

Especially not someone like her.

She’s not my problem.

And I’ll make damn sure she never becomes one.

But when my eyes fell on her lips, I wanted her to be mine.
How Not To Fall For A Dragon

How Not To Fall For A Dragon

268.6k Views · Completed · Kit Bryan
I never applied to the Academy for Magical Beings and Creatures.

Which is why it was more than a little confusing when a letter arrived with my name already printed on a schedule, a dorm waiting, and classes picked out as if someone knew me better than I knew myself. Everyone knows the Academy, it’s where witches sharpen their spells, shifters master their forms, and every kind of magical creature learns to control their gifts.

Everyone except me.

I don’t even know what I am. No shifting, no magic tricks, nothing. Just a girl surrounded by people who can fly, conjure fire, or heal with a touch. So I sit through classes pretending I belong, and I listen hard for any clue that might tell me what’s hidden in my blood.

The only person more curious than me is Blake Nyvas, tall, golden-eyed, and very much a Dragon. People whisper that he’s dangerous, warn me to keep my distance. But Blake seems determined to solve the mystery of me, and somehow I trust him more than anyone else.

Maybe it’s reckless. Maybe it’s dangerous.

But when everyone else looks at me like I don’t belong, Blake looks at me like I’m a riddle worth solving.
Alpha Nicholas's Little Mate

Alpha Nicholas's Little Mate

1.2m Views · Ongoing · Becky j
"Mate is here!"
What? No—wait… oh Moon Goddess, no.
Please tell me you're joking, Lex.
But she's not. I can feel her excitement bubbling under my skin, while all I feel is dread.
We turn the corner, and the scent hits me like a punch to the chest—cinnamon and something impossibly warm. My eyes scan the room until they land on him. Tall. Commanding. Beautiful.
And then, just as quickly… he sees me.
His expression twists.
"Fuck no."
He turns—and runs.
My mate sees me and runs.
Bonnie has spent her entire life being broken down and abused by the people closest to her including her very own twin sister. Alongside her best friend Lilly who also lives a life of hell, they plan to run away while attending the biggest ball of the year while it's being hosted by another pack, only things don't quite go to plan leaving both girls feeling lost and unsure about their futures.
Alpha Nicholas is 28, mateless, and has no plans to change that. It's his turn to host the annual Blue Moon Ball this year and the last thing he expects is to find his mate. What he expects even less is for his mate to be 10 years younger than him and how his body reacts to her. While he tries to refuse to acknowledge that he has met his mate his world is turned upside down after guards catch two she-wolves running through his lands.
Once they are brought to him he finds himself once again facing his mate and discovers that she's hiding secrets that will make him want to kill more than one person.
Can he overcome his feelings towards having a mate and one that is so much younger than him? Will his mate want him after already feeling the sting of his unofficial rejection? Can they both work on letting go of the past and moving forward together or will fate have different plans and keep them apart?
Goddess Of The Underworld

Goddess Of The Underworld

764.5k Views · Completed · Sheridan Hartin
Left at a pack border with a name and a stubborn heartbeat, Envy grows into the sharpest kind of survivor, an orphaned warrior who knows how to hold a line and keep moving. Love isn’t in the plan…until four alpha wolves with playboy reputations and inconveniently soft hands decide the girl who won’t bow is the only queen they’ll ever take. Their mate. The one they have waited for. Xavier, Haiden, Levi, and Noah are gorgeous, lethal, and anything but perfect and Envy isn’t either. She’s changing. First into hell hound, Layah at her heels and fire in her veins. Then into what the realm has been waiting for, a Goddess of the Underworld, dragging her mates down to hell with her.

When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
Falling For The Biker: The Vice President's Girl

Falling For The Biker: The Vice President's Girl

294.2k Views · Completed · Lily S.W
"Do you feel that, Wren? That pull between us?"
His eyes darken, flicking to my mouth.
"It's wrong. Your brother would slit my throat for just standing this close. But tell me, little bird" his breath ghosts my skin, "are you trembling because you hate me… or because you've wanted this just as much as I have?"
Wren thought she'd buried the chaos of New Orleans for good—the clubs, the blood-soaked loyalties, the men who lived and died by their kuttes. Seattle gave her everything she ever wanted: freedom, love, a future.
But one betrayal shatters it all.
Dragged home by tragedy, Wren finds herself under the watchful eye of Ezra Jax—the Raven Reapers MC's vice president and her brother's best friend. He's infuriating, dangerous, and far too tempting for a man she should never touch.
And the deeper Wren is pulled back into his world, the more she realizes nothing about her past—or about Ezra—is what she believed.
In the chaos of gang wars, mounting debts, and old betrayals, he becomes the one constant. The more she fights him, the harder she falls. And the more he pushes her away, the more lethal his pull becomes.
Because in this world, love isn't sweet.
It's brutal. Bloody.
And it's bound to break them both.
When loyalty is everything and love can cost your life, will Wren risk her heart on the one man she was never meant to love?
A pack of their own

A pack of their own

1.9m Views · Completed · dragonsbain22
Being the middle Child ignored and neglected, rejected by family and injured, She receives her wolf early and realizes she is a new type of hybrid but doesn't know how to control her power, she leaves her pack with her best friend and grandmother to go to her grandfather's clan to learn what she is and how to handle her power and then with her fated mate, her best friend and her fated mate little brother and grandmother start their own pack.
The mafia princess return

The mafia princess return

833.5k Views · Completed · Tonje Unosen
Talia have been living with her mother, stepsister and Stepfather for years. One day she finally get away from them. Suddenly she learn she have more family out there and she have many people that actually love her, something she have never felt before! At least not as she can remember. She have to learn to trust others, get her new brothers to accept her for who she is!
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

2m Views · Ongoing · Jaylee
Soft hot lips find the shell of my ear and he whispers, "You think I don't want you?" He pushes his hips forward, grinding into the back of my ass and I groan. "Really?" He chuckles.

"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."

I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.

Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.

"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."


New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.

Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates

When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.

But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
Let Them Kneel

Let Them Kneel

224.1k Views · Ongoing · My Fantasy Stories
Kaelani spent her life believing she was wolfless.
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.

But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.

Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.

When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.

For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.

Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.

But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.

And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.

Especially him.

She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.

Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.
The Human Among  Wolves

The Human Among Wolves

707k Views · Ongoing · ZWrites
"You actually thought I cared about you?" His smirk was sharp, almost cruel.
My stomach twisted, but he wasn’t finished.
"You're just a pathetic little human," Zayn said, his words deliberate, each one hitting like a slap. "Spreading your legs for the first guy who bothers to notice you."
Heat rushed to my face, burning with humiliation. My chest ached — not from his words alone, but from the sick realization that I had trusted him. That I had let myself believe he was different.
I was so, so stupid.
——————————————————
When eigteen-year-old Aurora Wells moves to a sleepy town with her parents, the last thing she expects is to be enrolled in a secret academy for werewolves.
Moonbound Academy is no ordinary school. It's here young Lycans, Betas and Alphas train in shifting, elemental magic, and ancient pack laws. But Aurora? She's just...human. a mistake. The new receptionist forgot to check her species - and now she's surrounded by predators who sense she doesn't belong.
Determined to stay under the radar, Aurora plans to survive the year unnoticed. But when she catches the attention of Zayn, a brooding and infuriatingly powerful Lycan prince, her life gets a lot more complicated. Zayn already has a mate. He already has enemies. And he definitely doesn't want anything to do with a clueless human.
But secrets run deeper than bloodlines at Moonbound. as Aurora unravels the truth about the academy - and herself - she begins to question everything she thought she knew.
Including the reason she was brought here at all.
Enemies will rise. Loyalties will shift. And the girl with no place in their world...might be the key to saving it.
Invisible To Her Bully

Invisible To Her Bully

536.3k Views · Ongoing · sunsationaldee
Unlike her twin brother, Jackson, Jessa struggled with her weight and very few friends. Jackson was an athlete and the epitome of popularity, while Jessa felt invisible. Noah was the quintessential “It” guy at school—charismatic, well-liked, and undeniably handsome. To make matters worse, he was Jackson’s best friend and Jessa’s biggest bully. During their senior year, Jessa decides it was time for her to gain some self-confidence, find her true beauty and not be the invisible twin. As Jessa transformed, she begins to catch the eye of everyone around her, especially Noah. Noah, initially blinded by his perception of Jessa as merely Jackson’s sister, started to see her in a new light. How did she become the captivating woman invading his thoughts? When did she become the object of his fantasies? Join Jessa on her journey from being the class joke to a confident, desirable young woman, surprising even Noah as she reveals the incredible person she has always been inside.