Eighteen years ago, the sky caught fire.
Not with flame, but with light — a blinding gold that burst across the heavens in the dead of night. The stars shimmered like they were holding their breath. Then, all at once, one star flared brighter than the rest and hovered in the sky like a beacon, casting a trail of silver down toward the countryside.
Inside the royal palace, in a dark vaulted chamber deep beneath stone and gold, something stirred.
The crown.
Kept in an ancient chamber and sealed for generations, the crown suddenly lit up with brilliance, matching the star above. Its golden arches gleamed. Jewels shimmered as though awake for the first time in centuries. But the light was so powerful, so bright, that it shone beyond the sealed walls and narrow slits of the chamber — spilling out into the halls of the palace like sunlight bursting through storm clouds.
Guards and nobles across the palace stopped and stared. Whispers turned to gasps. Feet began to rush.
"Where is that light coming from?"
"The lower chambers — the vault!"
"The ancient vault hasn't been opened in generations!"
As the glowing grew stronger, the king himself was roused from his chambers. He walked with his council and his guards toward the ancient chamber.
When the doors were unsealed and slowly pushed open, the golden light flooded out like a wave.
And there it was: the crown, humming softly with magic and light.
The king stood still. So did the guards. And behind them, nobles and staff pushed in quietly, drawn by the brilliance.
Among them, a four-year-old boy stood clutching the robes of his tutor, surrounded by his elder brother.
His eyes, wide and unblinking, were fixed on the crown.
"It's glowing..." he whispered.
His brothers, older and louder, gaped in wonder.
"I've never seen it do that before," one of them murmured.
"No one has," said a courtier in a hushed voice. "This has never happened."
The crown spun slowly, humming with power, a low song no one could quite hear but everyone could feel. It pulsed like a heartbeat. Then, just as suddenly, the light faded. The star dimmed. The crown returned to silence.
Far away, in a great stone mansion nestled in the hills of the countryside — rich in heritage but quiet in reputation — a girl was born.
Her mother wept in exhaustion. Her father stood at the tall window, watching the last glimmer of light fade into the sky.
They did not name her yet. No one knew what to name a child born under a sky like that.
The girl stood in the middle of a misty field.
She wasn't sure how she got there, or why the air felt so soft and heavy, like breathing in a secret. All around her, there was nothing but silence — until she saw it.
A crown.
Floating in the air like it had always been waiting.
It shimmered with a strange light, gold and glowing, the kind of thing only royals ever touched. Her heart thudded. She took a step closer.
A crown?
Two hands — pale, strong, faceless — rose out of the mist, holding it up. She couldn't see who they belonged to. The crown hovered in their palms like a gift.
Then, slowly, the hands turned, and pointed the crown at her.
She gasped. She glanced behind her — rows and rows of people stood in the fog, shadows without faces. Surely the crown wasn't meant for her. She was just... her.
But when she turned back, the crown was still there, glowing.
Still pointing at her.
She took a step back.
Me?
The crown pulsed once with light.
And she woke up.
She sat up, heart pounding, sweat on her neck.
"What kind of dream is that...?" she whispered, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes.
A crown? For her? The youngest, the quietest, the one everyone called "Lowly" like it was her name?
She padded out to the grand kitchen of the mansion, where her siblings were already bickering over breakfast. She told them the dream, nervous but excited.
They blinked — and then burst into laughter.
"A crown? You?"
"She wants to be queen now!"
"Go and fetch water, dreamer girl."
Someone gave her a playful shove. Another flicked her ear.
She said nothing. She just smiled faintly and went back to her corner, quiet as always. But something in her had shifted. Something small, like the first crack of light before dawn.
That day, nobody noticed how her eyes stayed distant, thoughtful.
They didn't see how she finished chores faster than anyone else, how she fixed the broken chair in silence, how she stayed up reading the Viscount's old ledgers at night when everyone thought she was asleep.
They didn't know she'd taught herself to read.
They didn't know her mind was sharper than most noble sons.
They just knew she was the quiet one. The last-born. The "Lowly."
But the crown knew.
That night, as she lay on her thin mat, her sister whispered to their mother, "She's acting strange again. Staring at nothing."
Her mother sighed. "Let her be. She'll forget the dream soon."
But the girl didn't forget. Her name was Kayla.
She closed her eyes, and the crown was waiting for her again — not in the sky this time, but deep in her chest, warm and stubborn and glowing quietly.