Light. Too much of it.

It pierced through the backs of my eyes like needles made of fire.

My head throbbed, my bones ached, and the weight on my skull—

The crown.

Still there.

Still burning.

I opened my eyes. The world was wrong.

Not because of the tall stained-glass windows or the distant sound of bells tolling outside the castle. Not even because I was in the royal throne room—where boys like me were never allowed to stand, let alone bleed.

No.

What was wrong… was how everyone was looking at me. Like I had become something they feared. Or worse—something they couldn't understand.

There were nobles in gold-trimmed robes.

A circle of priests whispering prayers too quiet to be holy.

Two armored knights stood like statues, hands on hilts, not moving—just watching.

And at the far end, on the throne once owned by a dying king,

I stood.

Barefoot.

Burned.

Alive.

“Where did he come from?” one noble hissed.

“He shouldn’t be here—”

“Wasn’t he a servant boy—?”

“The crown chose him,” someone whispered.

“No,” another snapped. “The crown does not choose. We do.”

I tried to speak, but my voice caught on something raw inside me. My throat felt like it had been scorched. The High Priest stepped forward. Robes like bone, eyes like knives.

“What is your name, child?” he asked.

I almost said Tavren.

Almost.

But when I opened my mouth, the name wouldn’t come out.

A different voice answered instead.

Deeper. Older. Mine… and not mine.

“Kael.”

The priests stepped back as if I’d struck them.

The nobles stiffened. One dropped a golden goblet. It shattered against the stone floor.“That name is forbidden,” one of them barked. “That name belongs to—”

“To the crown,” the High Priest said quietly. “And the crown is no longer empty.” He turned back to me, expression unreadable.

“You are not what you were, Kael. But are you what we need?”

His fingers moved. A silent signal.

A knight stepped forward.

She wore a helm shaped like a falcon’s beak. Her armor gleamed like frost. No name on her breastplate. Just the mark of the royal blades.

A test.

Of loyalty. Of threat .Of control.

She drew her sword.

It rang like thunder in the quiet chamber.

I wanted to run. To scream. To disappear.

But my body wouldn’t move not because I was frozen. Because something in me was waiting she charged the air cracked steel whistled.

And then—The crown screamed not with sound, but with light a blinding column of golden flame erupted from my chest, throwing the knight across the room.

The throne cracked.

The walls trembled.

And every candle in the chamber blew out at once.

Silence.

Then—“By the gods,” someone gasped.

Smoke curled from my fingers. My veins glowed faintly under my skin, like molten metal. I wasn’t strong. I was scared. But the crown didn’t care.

The crown pulsed. Once. Twice. Then settled.

I fell to my knees.

My hands hit cold stone blood dripped from my nose and still… the crown didn’t fall.

“I didn’t mean to—” I gasped. “I didn’t…”

The High Priest stepped closer. Not afraid. Just… watching.

“It seems,” he said softly, “the crown has already begun to wake.”