The true crown lay at Seraphina's feet, its silver gleaming unnaturally bright against the bloodstained marble. It was smaller than she'd imagined - a simple circlet of pale metal, unadorned but for seven shallow depressions where gems had once been set. The morning light streaming through the shattered windows made the silver shimmer like water, casting rippling reflections across the ruined throne room.
For three heartbeats, no one moved. The air hung thick with the metallic tang of blood and the sharper stench of whatever black ichor had oozed from the false crown. Lysandra slumped against Corvin's side, her breathing wet and labored, the fingers of her uninjured hand clutching at her brother's sleeve with desperate strength. Kaelan stood like a statue over the king's withered remains, his sword still raised in guard position, the muscles in his forearm standing out like cords beneath his sweat-slicked skin.
Then the crown moved.
It rolled toward Seraphina with impossible precision, stopping just short of her boots with a quiet chime that resonated through the silent hall. The silver seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting almost imperceptibly, as if it contained something alive beneath its smooth surface.
"Take it."
The whisper slithered through the throne room, coming from everywhere at once - the cracks in the marble, the splintered remains of the stained glass, even the very air between them. It wasn't the vault's scream or the king's hollow voice, but something far older, its words layered with countless voices speaking as one.
Lysandra coughed violently, black blood flecking her pale lips. "Don't," she rasped, her ice-blue eyes wide with something beyond fear. Her wounded shoulder had stopped bleeding, but the flesh around the injury had taken on a sickly gray pallor, the veins beneath her skin standing out dark as ink. "It wants you to—"
Seraphina knelt.
The moment her fingers brushed the cool metal, the world dissolved into blinding white.
When her vision cleared, she stood in a memory that wasn't hers.
The castle's throne room surrounded her, yet subtly different - the stones newer, the banners a deeper shade of crimson than the Valemont colors she knew. A woman knelt at the center of the hall, her dark hair streaked with silver, her hands bound with chains that glowed with faint blue runes. Even in chains, even kneeling, Queen Celine carried herself with a regal defiance that made Seraphina's breath catch.
This was her mother as she'd never known her-not the gentle, fading woman of her childhood, but a queen in her prime, her silver eyes blazing with barely contained fury.
Before her stood a king-not Aldric, but his father, Edric the Stern, his massive frame draped in furs, the crown resting heavy on his brow. The gems set into the silver pulsed with a slow, rhythmic light, like the beating of some great beast's heart.
"You would dare?" the old king thundered, his voice shaking the stained glass in their frames.
Celine lifted her chin, the movement causing the chains at her wrists to chime softly. "I would." Her gaze flicked to a shadowed alcove where a small figure crouched - a little girl with raven-black hair and wide, terrified eyes. Seraphina. The child clutched a silver hairpin in her tiny fist, its bird-shaped wings folded tight against her palm. "For her," Celine whispered, her voice breaking. "For all of them."
The king's hand moved faster than Seraphina could follow. The crack of his palm against Celine's cheek echoed through the hall like a gunshot. Blood sprayed from her split lip, splattering across the marble in a crimson arc.
"The crown chooses its vessels," the king snarled, his fingers tightening in Celine's hair. "It always has. It always will."
Celine spat blood at his feet. "And I choose to starve it." Her silver eyes burned with a light that had nothing to do with the torches. "No more queens. No more deaths."
The vision shattered like glass, reforming into another scene -
Celine was in her private chambers, her hands shaking as she pressed the silver hairpin into a hidden compartment in her jewellery box. Moonlight streamed through the window, turning her skin to alabaster, her dark hair to liquid shadow. "For my daughter," she whispered, her breath fogging the polished wood, "when the time comes."
Then -
The king's hands were around her throat, his golden eyes gone black with the crown's influence. The gems in the circlet pulsed crimson as Celine choked, her silver eyes locked on some distant point only she could see. Her fingers scrabbled at the king's wrists, her nails drawing blood that dripped onto the coverlet in perfect, round droplets.
The last thing Seraphina heard before the memory dissolved was her mother's final, gasping word:
"Break it."
She came back to herself on her knees in the ruined throne room, the real crown burning cold in her grip. The metal had gone frosty, its surface covered in delicate patterns of frost that spread across her fingers like creeping vines.
Lysandra had dragged herself across the marble, leaving smears of black blood in her wake. Her uninjured hand clutched at Seraphina's skirts, the fabric tearing beneath her desperate grip. "It showed you, didn't it?" she rasped, her voice little more than a whisper. "What Mother tried to do."
Seraphina's throat felt raw, as though she'd been the one screaming. "She wanted to end the cycle."
"There is no ending it." Lysandra coughed, the sound wet and painful. Black ichor flecked her lips, her breath coming in shallow, rattling gasps. "The crown always wins. It always finds a way."
Kaelan stepped forward, his boots crunching on broken glass. His sword remained drawn, the point hovering just above the marble, his grip so tight his knuckles stood out white beneath his skin. His dark eyes flicked between the crown and Seraphina's face, his expression unreadable. "There's always a choice," he said quietly.
Corvin hovered behind them, his freckled face pale as parchment. His hands shook where they gripped the hilt of a dagger he'd taken from a fallen guard, the blade still clean. "Then what do we do?"
The crown pulsed in Seraphina's hands, its rhythm matching the frantic beat of her own heart. She thought of her mother's last word, of the hairpin's fiery transformation, of the way the false crown had shattered when its heart was destroyed. The answer came to her not in words, but in a sudden, terrible clarity that settled over her like a mantle.
Slowly, she raised her head.
"We give it what it wants."
The journey to the crypt passed in a blur of shadow and pain. The castle corridors seemed longer than Seraphina remembered, the stairs to the lower levels steeper. The few servants they encountered fled at the sight of them - the bloodied princess, the wounded heir, the disgraced knight, and the trembling prince. No one stopped to question why they carried the crown between them like a corpse to its grave.
The crypt was colder than Seraphina remembered, the air thick with the scent of dried roses and something darker, something that curled in the back of her throat like smoke. Queen Celine's sarcophagus stood open, the alabaster lid pushed aside to reveal the bones within. The skeleton lay perfect and undisturbed, the ivory fingers still clutching a single white rose to its chest, the petals long since turned to dust.
Seraphina placed the crown on her mother's skeletal chest, the silver stark against the yellowed ribs. The moment it touched bone, the metal darkened, the smooth surface rippling like disturbed water.
Kaelan and Corvin flanked her, their breath fogging in the chill air. Lysandra leaned heavily against the tomb's edge, her wound still weeping black. The ichor had spread, the dark veins now creeping up her neck, branching across her jaw like cracks in porcelain.
"It won't work," she whispered, her voice hoarse with pain. "The crown can't be destroyed. Not truly."
Seraphina flexed her burned hand, the brand pulsing in time with the crown's unnatural rhythm. "Not destroyed," she agreed, her voice steady despite the fear clawing at her ribs. She met Kaelan's gaze, finding unexpected strength in the dark depths of his eyes. "Fed."
Understanding dawned in his expression. He nodded once, sharp and sure.
Seraphina raised the hairpin - now nothing more than a single, glowing feather edged in gold - and plunged it into the crown's central depression where the largest gem should have sat.
The explosion of light blinded her. The crown screamed, the sound tearing through the crypt like a living thing, shaking the bones in their tombs. The silver blackened, the metal twisting and warping as the hollows where gems had once been set cracked like eggshells. For one terrible, endless moment, Seraphina felt the crown's hunger-not for power, not for blood, but for peace, for an end to the endless cycle of death and betrayal.
Then silence.
The crown lay in pieces on her mother's bones, its silver dull and lifeless, its hollows empty. The hairpin was gone - only a single golden feather remained, its edges glowing faintly in the crypt's gloom.
Lysandra exhaled sharply, the sound almost a sob. "What did you do?"
Seraphina reached out, touching the feather to her mother's skull. The moment it made contact, the bone glowed gold, then settled back into ivory. "What she couldn't," she whispered.
Above them, the castle trembled - not in anger, but in release, as though some great weight had been lifted from its ancient stones. Somewhere in the distance, a bell began to toll - not the frantic alarm from before, but the steady, measured chime that marked the passing of a king.
And the dawn of a new reign.