The fire in the hearth had long died out. Only cinders remained, glowing faintly beneath the iron grate. I couldn’t sleep. The crown never let me. It didn’t whisper. Didn’t speak.

Just… pulsed. Like it was breathing with me. Or through me.

The room was silent—too silent.

Even the palace guards rotated every bell. Their footsteps echoed down the marble halls like clockwork.

But tonight…

Nothing.

I sat upright.

Something was wrong.

The air felt thinner. The shadows longer.

I glanced toward the doorway. Still locked. Bolted from the inside. But that didn’t matter to someone who knew how to vanish. A soft creak came from the ceiling. Then silence again. I didn’t call for help didn’t move. Just waited.

And that’s when I saw it—

A glint of metal above the window frame.

Too precise. Too still.

Then… a shape dropped.

No sound.

No warning.

Just a blur of black and a knife aimed for my heart.

The crown reacted before I did.

Light surged. Golden, jagged like lightning—not from me, but from the space around me. The blade stopped inches from my chest. Then the assassin screamed. Not from pain—but confusion. His hand trembled. His eyes wide beneath the dark cloth mask.

“What… what is this magic?”

The floor around us cracked.

Flames licked up through the stone—not fire, memories. Flickering images of battlefields. Crowns melting. Eyes burning.

The past… fighting back.

I stood slowly, my eyes never leaving his.

“You picked the wrong corpse,” I said. “The crown doesn’t sleep.”

His other blade shot toward my throat.

I caught it.

Barehanded.

Heat flared from my palm. The metal hissed, then melted, dripping like wax.

The assassin stepped back—but there was nowhere to run.

A second presence filled the chamber.

Not mine.

Not the assassin’s.

Something older.

A voice echoed from the crown—not spoken aloud, but pressed into my mind.

“This one bears the mark. One of the Broken Order.”

I flinched.

“What does that mean?” I whispered.

But the crown didn’t answer.

The assassin looked just as stunned.

“You… you can hear it?” he gasped.

“You should not exist.”

He bit down on something.

His eyes flared red for a moment—then turned black.

Ash.

That’s all that remained.

A pile of scorched dust.

The door burst open.

Guards flooded in. The High Priest was behind them, robes half-thrown on.

“What happened?” he asked sharply.

I looked down at the glowing lines still fading beneath my skin.

“Someone tried to kill me.”

“And failed,” the priest murmured. “Of course.”

He looked at the ashes. Then at me.

“The crown has begun protecting its vessel.”

He sounded almost amused.

Or… worried.

I turned away from them and stared at the flickering hearth.

The ashes glowed softly.

But they weren’t from wood.

And they weren’t from the fire.