Chapter 2 The crown doesn’t choose gently
I did not walk to the king.
The Crown dragged me. Invisible force wrapped around my wrists and spine, lifting me just enough that my feet barely touched the floor. Gasps echoed through the Great Hall as I was pulled forward, past nobles who shrank away as though I carried plague in my blood.
The Crown hovered above my head, humming—low, satisfied.
My skin burned where its shadow touched me.
"Unhand her" someone cried.
The king raised one finger.
Silence fell instantly.
Up close, he was worse than the rumors.
Power radiated from him in cold waves, sharp enough to make my lungs ache. His gaze locked onto me with frightening intensity not surprise, not disbelief, but recognition.
As though he had been waiting for this moment longer than I had lived.
“Lower her,” he commanded.
The force released me.
My knees hit the stone floor hard enough to knock the breath from my chest. Pain bloomed, but I did not cry out. I refused to give them that.
The Crown descended with me.
It settled fully now, hovering inches above my head, its heat searing, its presence crushing. I felt it everywhere in my pulse, my bones, my thoughts. It whispered in a language I did not know, promising power and punishment in the same breath.
The priests backed away.
“This is impossible,” one whispered. “She bears no sigil. No royal blood.”
The king stepped closer.
The red glow of the Blood Moon painted his face in violent shadows. When he stopped before me, I could feel the curse clinging to him ancient, gnawing, hungry. It recognized the Crown.
It recognized me.
“What is your name?” he asked.
His voice was not loud, but it carried weight. The kind that bent knees and broke wills.
I swallowed. “I… I don’t have one that matters.”
A lie.
But names had never protected me before.
The Crown pulsed sharply.
Pain ripped through my skull, white-hot and unforgiving. I gasped, clutching at my head as images flooded my mind thrones bathed in blood, a kingdom burning, a woman screaming as the Crown fused to her flesh.
“Answer truthfully,” the king said softly.
I trembled. “Elara.”
The Crown flared brighter.
A murmur tore through the hall.
The king’s jaw tightened.
“Elara of where?” he pressed.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I was brought here as a child. I serve in the west wing.”
The Crown descended another inch.
I screamed.
This pain was different and deeper, intimate, as if the Crown were peeling me open, searching my soul for lies. My vision blurred, and for a terrifying moment, I thought it would consume me as it had the heirs.
Then It stopped.
The Crown lifted slightly, hovering in approval.
The king exhaled slowly.
“The prophecy is clear,” he said, turning to the priests. “She is unclaimed by throne or name.”
“She cannot rule,” a noble protested. “She is nothing.”
The king’s eyes snapped toward him.
“Careful,” he warned. “The Crown is listening.”
The noble fell silent.
The king turned back to me, his gaze unreadable.
“Rise,” he said.
I struggled to my feet, legs shaking.
“You will come with me,” he continued. “You will be bound to the throne until the Blood Moon sets.”
Fear clawed its way up my spine. “Bound… how?”
The Crown answered.
It slammed down.
Not onto my head but into my chest.
I screamed as searing heat tore through me, carving an invisible mark over my heart.
The Crown dissolved into shadow and light, vanishing beneath my skin.
The pain was unbearable, consuming every thought until I collapsed again, gasping, clawing at my chest.
When it ended, the mark remained.
A crimson sigil burned faintly beneath my skin, pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
The king knelt before me.
Gasps erupted around us.
Kings did not kneel.
He reached out not touching me, not yet and his voice dropped so low only I could hear.
“The Crown has bound itself to you,” he said. “Which means it has bound you to me.”
My breath stuttered. “I don’t understand.”
“You will,” he replied grimly. “And you will hate it.”
His fingers brushed my wrist.
The moment skin met skin, agony ripped through us both.
He hissed sharply, yanking his hand back as dark veins flared briefly along his palm.
I cried out as the mark on my chest burned brighter, responding to his pain.
We stared at each other, shock mirrored between us.
The Crown had not just chosen me.
It had tied us together.
“The bond…” the king muttered. “It’s already forming.”
The Blood Moon roared overhead, shaking the dome.
The priests fell to their knees.
The king rose slowly, his expression hardening into something dangerous.
“Take her to the inner chambers,” he commanded. “Seal the doors. No one enters without my order.”
He looked down at me one last time before turning away.
“Pray,” he said coldly, “that the Crown has not just doomed us both.”
As I was dragged from the hall, the sigil over my heart pulsed violently.
And in my mind, the Crown whispered its final promise:
Queen… or corpse.