The mirror was empty. Just my reflection—sweating, shaking, eyes darker than I remembered.

But the symbol… it stayed.

Burned into my thoughts. The same jagged curve carved into the assassin’s chest.

A half-sun. Split down the middle.

Wrong.

Like a wound across time.

I didn’t call the guards.

Didn’t scream for the priest.

I waited.

Until the sun touched the tower windows. Until the light felt fake again.

Then I moved.

The Sanctum’s library was locked. Of course it was.

But power does strange things to locks. Especially when your fingertips still hum with crown-fire.

I pressed my hand to the door. It hissed. Creaked. Opened.

No alarms.

No curses.

But the air inside? Dead.

Like no one had been here in decades.

Row after row of scrolls. Dust that hadn’t been disturbed in ages.

I wasn’t looking for magic.

I was looking for history.

And I found it.

Tucked behind a crumbling ledger of old knight orders—a faded leather book with no title. Its spine was cracked. Its seal?

The same broken sigil.

Half-sun. Split down the middle.

“Order of the Crownless,” I read aloud.

The ink was shaky. Older than the palace itself.

Inside: drawings. Notes. Sketches of symbols I didn’t recognize—and faces I didn’t want to.

One looked like the High Priest.

Another looked like Iskar.

But the third…

A woman with silver eyes.

Chains across her mouth.

The same one from the vision.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

Behind me, the library door shut.

I turned—fast.

But no one was there.

Only the smell of smoke.

Not fire. Not candles.

Magic.

Someone else had been watching.

“Kael.”

The voice echoed from above.

I looked up—too late.

A hand slammed into my shoulder, shoving me down. I crashed against the table, scrolls scattering.

A blade kissed the back of my neck.

Not steel.

Obsidian.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the figure growled.

A woman. Hooded. Robes marked with the same sigil—only inverted.

“The Crownless don’t choose kings. We end them.”