Thank you to those who are reading this work. This is my very first novel and my lifelong dream, born from my imagination and written from the heart. I apologize if it is not what you expected, but I am grateful for this golden opportunity to share it with you.

I look forward to your love and support for this story. I will be overjoyed if you like it, share it with your dearest friends and family, and continue reading. If sometimes I upload the story late, please forgive me—I promise I will always do my best to post the moment I feel ready.

I love you all, and I wish you a wonderful adventure as you step into the pages of The Journey of Victoria.

There was nothing remarkable about the village of Wynthorne—at least, not to those who passed it by. It clung to the edge of the sea as though afraid the waves might sweep it away, its cottages pressed close together, their roofs weathered grey by salt and time. Ivy climbed the stone walls, gulls wheeled overhead, and the narrow streets echoed with the creak of carts and the chatter of neighbours. Life here was steady, predictable, and safe.

Each day followed the same rhythm: the toll of the morning bell, the smell of bread rising from the square, and the slap of nets against wood as fishermen mended their catch. Children ran barefoot through puddles, old men argued about the weather, and women bargained in the market for flour and fish. To most, this was the heartbeat of home.

But to Victoria Arwen, Wynthorne was a cage.

At sixteen, she was restless, hungry for something beyond the tides and markets. She rose before dawn, climbing the cliffs to watch the horizon where sea met sky. That line called to her more loudly than the bell in the square. It was the promise of something greater—something meant only for her. Yet when she spoke of her dreams, her mother pressed dough into her hands, reminding her that bread, not dreams, fed a family. Her father only shook his head, warning that the sea was cruel enough without chasing illusions.

Still, the dreams came.

Night after night, she wandered strange landscapes in her sleep: forests where the trees bent low to whisper her name, towers of glass rising from endless deserts, and doorways carved into constellations. And always, she heard the same voice. Soft as the wind, unyielding as the tide, it called her onwards.

She told herself it was only imagination. A child’s yearning for adventure. And yet, in the secret corners of her heart, she knew it was something more.

Because Victoria had always been different. The villagers said her eyes were too bright, too quick to notice things others missed: the shimmer in the air before a storm, the hush that fell in the heartbeat before dawn. She carried a restlessness inside her, like a string pulled taut, waiting to snap.

It was only a matter of time before the world came looking for her.

And when it did, Wynthorne—the quiet village of bread and sails—would never again be the same.

The morning bell of Wynthorne rang out across the rooftops, calling fishermen to the shore and children to their lessons. For most, it was simply another ordinary day.

For Victoria Arwen, it was another day of pretending to be ordinary.

She hurried across the square with Selena at her side, skirts hitched up to avoid the puddles from last night’s rain. Selena was talking a mile a minute, hands flying as she recounted how she nearly set her kitchen table on fire the night before.

“It was one candle, Victoria! One! And suddenly the whole cloth caught, like it had been soaked in oil. My mother nearly fainted. My father just sighed and said, ‘That’s my girl.’ Honestly, do you think I’m cursed?”

“You’re not cursed,” Victoria said, biting back a laugh. “You’re just clumsy.”

“Clumsy?” Selena gasped in mock offence. “Anthony, tell her!”

Walking a step behind them, Anthony rolled his eyes but grinned. “Selena, last week you tripped over your own cat. Twice. She’s not wrong.”

Selena swatted his arm, and he dodged away with a laugh. Victoria shook her head, but her lips curved in a smile. This was how it always was with the three of them—Selena fiery, Anthony steady, and Victoria caught somewhere in between.

But inside, she didn’t always feel like she belonged.

They passed the bakery, where the smell of fresh bread curled through the air. Neighbours greeted one another with nods, exchanging baskets of fish and trading news about the weather and the tides. Everyone knew their place, their role in Wynthorne’s rhythm.

Everyone except Victoria.

She tried. She really did. She kneaded dough at her mother’s side, carried water from the well, and even learnt to stitch nets, though her fingers ached. But no matter how hard she tried, she felt like an actor in someone else’s play. Always watching, always waiting for a cue that never came.

And sometimes—like this morning—her difference slipped through.

As they crossed the square, Victoria paused, her gaze drawn upward. The light over the rooftops shimmered faintly, just for a heartbeat, like heat rising from stone. Nobody else seemed to notice. Selena was too busy scolding Anthony, and the villagers bustled on with their chores.

Victoria blinked, heart thudding. When her eyes refocused, the shimmer was gone.

“Victoria?” Anthony’s voice pulled her back. He was watching her with that steady, concerned look he always wore when she went quiet. “You all right?”

“Yes,” she said quickly, forcing a smile. “Just thinking.”

Selena groaned. “Not about escaping this boring place again?”

Victoria laughed, though it sounded thinner than she intended. “When do I ever talk about that?”

“Every day,” Selena and Anthony said at the same time.

The three of them burst out laughing, the sound ringing bright across the square. For a moment, Victoria felt lighter—like maybe she really could fit into this ordinary world after all.

But deep down, she knew better.

She wasn’t ordinary. And sooner or later, the truth of it would catch up to her.

Evening came to Wynthorne with the smell of salt and smoke. The square buzzed as villagers hurried to finish their business before the last bell. Fishmongers shouted prices that dropped lower with every passing minute, bakers stacked leftover loaves in baskets, and lanterns flickered to life one by one along the narrow lanes.

Victoria wove through the crowd with Selena and Anthony close behind, the three of them laughing more loudly than most of the weary shoppers.

“I swear the baker has a personal vendetta against me,” Selena huffed, holding up a misshapen loaf. “Every time, he gives me the ugliest one. This one looks like it fell off a cart and got run over.”

Anthony raised his eyebrows. “Maybe he’s just reflecting your personality in bread form.”

Selena gasped, smacking his arm with the loaf while Victoria nearly doubled over laughing. People turned to stare, but the trio was used to that. They always seemed too loud, too strange—at least compared to the quiet order of Wynthorne.

Victoria brushed a strand of dark hair from her eyes, her laughter fading as her gaze strayed to the fountain at the centre of the square. Something about the way the light struck it made her pause. The air above the stone shimmered faintly, like heat haze, though the evening was cool.

She blinked, and it was gone.

“You saw something, didn’t you?” Anthony’s voice cut in softly. He had noticed the way her smile faltered.

Victoria shook her head quickly. “It’s nothing. Just the light.”

But the truth followed her home.

Her family’s cottage sat near the cliffs, its windows open to the sea breeze. By the time she reached her room, dusk had deepened into night, painting everything in shades of blue. She closed the shutters, turned toward her bed—and froze.

There, on the sill, lay an object that had not been there before.

A key.

It was silver, slender, and gleaming as if freshly polished, though its surface felt cool beneath her fingertips. Strange markings ran along its length—runes she didn’t recognize, curling and shifting when she tried to focus on them.

Her breath caught. She knew this key.

Not from Wynthorne, not from any market stall or trinket shop—but from her dreams. She had seen it clutched in her hand as she walked through forests that whispered her name, as she opened doors carved into the stars themselves. Always the same shape, the same glow, the same impossible pull.

Now it was here. Real. Waiting for her.

The voices from her dreams seemed to stir faintly in her mind, soft as the tide against the shore.

Victoria closed her hand around the key, her pulse quickening. For the first time, she couldn’t pretend her difference was only imagination. The world she had always longed for—the one that lived in her dreams—had begun to bleed into her waking life.

And somewhere deep within her, she knew: Wynthorne’s would never again be ordinary