The room smelled like blood.

I couldn’t move at first. My legs were shaking—either from exhaustion or what had just happened. The only sound was the faint echo of dripping… somewhere behind me.

I didn’t turn around. I didn’t need to.

I already knew they were dead.

The nobles who tried to kill me. The priests who called me cursed. Even the guards who begged me to leave the crown alone.

They're all gone now.

Burned. Crushed. Silenced.

And somehow, I was still standing.

The crown on my head pulsed, almost like it had a heartbeat of its own. I could feel it pressing against my thoughts—pulling at pieces of my memory, replacing them with things I didn’t recognize.

Wars I hadn’t fought. Voices I’d never heard. Pain that didn’t belong to me.

My hands were still glowing with the same golden light that ripped through the room when the crown touched me. I looked down. Blood. Dirt. Ash.

I didn't recognize my own skin anymore.

“You don’t choose the crown,” I muttered under my breath.

“It chooses you.”

I’d heard the legends.

About the Crown of Veylan.

About how it destroyed the last king who wore it.

How it hadn’t accepted anyone in over three hundred years.

And yet… it chose me.

A no-name orphan with nothing but a servant’s cloak and a scar on his palm.

I didn’t understand it.

I still don’t.

But whatever this crown saw in me—it changed everything.

The doors behind me creaked. I heard the shuffle of feet. Survivors?

No—witnesses.

I glanced over my shoulder, just enough to see the horror in their eyes. The same people who spat at me yesterday… were now kneeling.

Bowing.

Like I was some kind of god or a monster.

I didn’t speak. Didn’t tell them to rise.

I just walked forward—past the throne, past the blood toward the shattered windows where the cold night waited.

The crown hummed louder with each step.

I didn’t know what it wanted yet.

I didn’t know who I had become.

But I knew one thing.

This kingdom would either bow to me…or burn with me.