The first thing I felt was cold.

Not the kind that bites. The kind that lingers. That seeps into your blood and settles in your bones like it belongs there.

The second thing I noticed was that I was breathing.

Which meant I had survived.

And that… felt wrong.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a ceiling carved from marble — soft cracks running through it like veins, spiderwebbing out from the corners. The light above was pale. Diffused. Too soft for a place that felt this cruel.

My body didn't move.

Not because I didn't want it to.

Because it wouldn't.

I blinked once. Then again. Slowly. Like I had to relearn how to be alive.

Somewhere to my right, a woman's voice murmured.

"The cursed one lives."

They didn't think I could hear them.
I didn't speak. I didn't flinch. But I heard everything.

Their robes brushed the floor. Their heels tapped with disapproval. One of them coughed like I offended the air.

"Should we inform the queen?"

"She already knows. She said to let it breathe and see what it becomes."

"It?"
"It," the other confirmed.

They left me alone after that.

I lay there, flat on stiff silks, arms numb, mouth dry, eyes burning from the light I hadn't earned.

I was small.

I hadn't realized it until my fingers twitched and I saw them—pale, delicate, soft. The hands of a child.

I tried to sit up and failed. My limbs collapsed under me like broken branches. My breath came out uneven.

Then, the third thing I noticed: the pain.

It didn't hit all at once. It rose. Like water from underneath. Slow. Unstoppable. The kind of ache that lived inside skin, like it had grown there.

I died, once.

I remembered that clearly now.
An impact. Screeching brakes. A flicker of metal and light.
My chest crushed. My lungs useless.

But this?

This was worse.

They said I was seven.

I don't remember the first time I heard it, but it stuck.

Seven years old, son of a king, firstborn of the royal line.

That should have meant something.

But here, in the kingdom of Aeloria, blood is power.
And my blood was wrong.

There are five sacred bloodlines.
The High Houses.
The divine veins of the gods.

Each tied to an element. Each stronger than the last.

And I belonged to none of them.

My mother—if she could still be called that—was a political offering. A noble of weak magic, sent to marry the king to seal a war treaty.

She died in childbirth. Or was killed in it.

They never spoke of her.

Only me.

And only in whispers.

They called me "His Highness" when they had to.
But never with warmth. Never with weight.
More like a slur they were forced to say.

And never, not once, did anyone speak my name.

Because they never gave me one.

I started counting days by the rhythm of the bells.
Morning prayer. Midmeal. Dusk assembly. Midnight silence.

No one came to my room unless ordered. The maids cleaned without looking at me. The guards outside never responded when I cried.

I stopped crying after the third night.

On the fifth day, the king visited.

He didn't enter. He stood at the threshold of my door, one hand resting on the hilt of a ceremonial sword he never used.

He was tall. Regally dressed. Blue robes, gold embroidery.
And hollow. So hollow I thought I could see through him.

His eyes were pale, like a man who had seen too much or not enough.

He didn't say my name.

He didn't ask if I was in pain.

He just stared for a while and said:

"You'll have to survive on your own. I can't protect you."

Then he turned and left.

That was the moment I realized the king had no power.

Not here.

Not in a palace ruled by Queen Seryne.

She was the true ruler of Aeloria.

The bearer of House Kaelith's blood. Descendant of the Flamebound Priestesses. A woman whose magic could silence a room just by entering it.

They said she once turned an ambassador into glass for looking her in the eyes too long.

The court feared her.
The king deferred to her.
The gods, perhaps, had forgotten how to oppose her.

And I? I was her stain.

Her husband's mistake.

Her reminder that not all blood can be refined.

When she finally spoke to me, it wasn't in private.

It was in the throne room.

I was brought in, thin and shaking, dressed in rags stitched by hand. My knees buckled on the stairs.

She didn't tell me to rise.

She didn't ask how I was.

She just looked at me and said:

"Aeloria has no use for broken things. If you wish to live, do so quietly. And never touch a flame again."

That was the last time she looked me in the eye.

I wasn't allowed near spellbooks.
Wasn't permitted to train.

Even though the magic in my body — fractured as it was — begged for release.

The one time I lost control, at age six, was during a nightmare. The room caught fire.

They didn't scold me.

They branded me.

Sealing runes carved into my spine, twisted with holy ink.
The pain didn't fade for a week.
The dreams never did.

And then came Kael.

My younger brother.
Born three years after me, but named as the first heir.

The real one.

Silver-haired. Crimson-eyed. Masked since he was a toddler.

They said he wore it to protect his lungs.

I knew that was a lie.

He wore it so the court wouldn't see him smile.

Because Kael always smiled.

Not with his mouth.
But with his eyes.
With his silence.

Especially when I was in pain.

The first time he saw me being whipped, he stood behind the captain of the guard.

Tiny. Still.
Eyes wide with curiosity.

He didn't look away.

Even when I screamed.

Even when I bled.

He watched until it ended.

And when I was dragged back to my room, too broken to cry, he stood outside my door and whispered:

"Don't die."

He was four.

And he already owned everything.

The court. The palace. The people.

And me.

When I turned seven — this new seven, not the old one I remember dying as — they stopped calling me "Your Highness."

I became "the Hollow."

"The First Mistake."

"The boy without a name."

I tried to name myself once.

Carved letters into the underside of my bed with a stolen quill.

But they faded.
Or someone erased them.
Or maybe I forgot them on purpose.

Because what's the point of naming something no one wants to remember?

Kael was given tutors. I was given chores.

He studied arcane combat. I cleaned the halls outside his study.

He was praised for every spell he cast.

I was punished for every time I looked too long in his direction.

He never spoke to me in public.

But sometimes, at night, he would sit outside my door.

Just breathing.

Just… there.

Until the silence felt like a scream.

I started dreaming about shadows.

About eyes watching from behind my own.

About laughter I didn't understand.

Sometimes I'd wake up with blood on my sheets and no memory of how it got there.

Sometimes Kael would be standing in the hallway.

Smiling.

And one day, when I woke up — bones aching, breath shallow, silence waiting — I found a note.

Folded beneath my pillow.

No name. No seal. Just two words written in elegant, cruel handwriting:

"Don't cry."