The Crownless No More

The city of Seravelle did not welcome kings.

Its walls were older than the Crown itself—pitted stone and silver moss—and its gates bore no crest. No banners flew. No guards saluted. Only the whisper of the wind and the rattle of broken signs guided travelers through the labyrinthine alleys.

Kaelen crossed beneath the Ashen Gate just after nightfall.

No one noticed him.

That was the point.

He wore no sigil, no colors, no sword. Just a grey cloak and a borrowed name. To the city, he was no prince, no heir. Just another exile trying to disappear.

But even the forgotten leave footprints.

As he passed through the lower quarter, a child tossed him a sprig of yarrow—a flower once used in royal coronations. She didn't speak. Just smiled with hollow eyes.

Kaelen moved on.

He had one name. One contact.

A man called Verrin, who was said to trade in things that didn't exist—ghost names, unmarked maps, and secrets too dangerous to survive on parchment.

The tavern was called The Hollow Flame. It sat like a scar at the edge of Seravelle's smuggler ward, lit by lanterns filled not with oil, but with pale-blue witchlight.

Inside, no one looked up.

Kaelen took a seat by the hearth and waited.

Minutes passed. Then an old woman shuffled over, her back bent, her hands trembled—but her voice was steady.

"Drink?"

"Only if it's the kind you don't serve strangers."

Her eyes narrowed. "Who sent you?"

"A raven."

She hesitated.

Then nodded.

Five minutes later, a hooded man slid into the seat opposite him. His cloak smelled of ash and wild mint.

"You're late," the man said.

"You're cryptic."

Verrin chuckled. "Good. The game has already started. No time for ceremony. Only blood and moves."

Kaelen leaned in. "I need a way to vanish. And then to reappear. Stronger. With eyes in every wall."

Verrin studied him. "You want a mask."

"I want a network. A brotherhood. A shield."

"And what will you pay?"

Kaelen paused.

"My name."

Verrin went still.

"Not the name you wear," he said. "The one the throne buried."

"That one," Kaelen whispered.

A slow grin.

"Then we begin."

In the days that followed, Kaelen disappeared into the bones of Seravelle.

He walked with outlaws, shared meals with orphan scribes, listened to caged seers mutter truths between sobs. He did not ask for loyalty. He earned it.

He bled with them.

The first to join him was a forger who'd once crafted royal decrees in perfect imitation. Her name was Silra, and she spoke in riddles.

The second was a blade-dancer, banished for dueling a noble who slit children's tongues.

The third was a mute mapmaker whose ink pulsed with latent Throneblood, though he claimed no heritage.

Together, they called themselves nothing.

But they knew what they were building.

A circle without banners.

A force without face.

A resistance that did not burn cities—it rewrote them.

Verrin watched with quiet amusement. "You're forming a Shadow Court," he said one night. "Dangerous."

Kaelen's reply was calm. "The crown left me no other kind."

They gathered in a ruin beneath the city. An old tribunal hall once used to judge sorcerers. At its center stood a broken mirror, etched with seven forgotten sigils. Throneblood reacted to it—always.

That was where Kaelen made his vow.

No more chains.

No more silence.

They would not be hunted like beasts. They would write the new script of power.

And he would not lead them as prince.

He would lead them as Ashwalker—the name that survived death, the name the throne could not burn.

Far above, in the palace he left behind, a raven perched on the king's throne.

It bore no message.

Just a single feather, red as blood.

King Orric crushed it in his palm.

"The boy plays at rebellion," he muttered.

The masked woman at his side smiled behind her veil.

"No," she whispered. "He plays at becoming what you feared he might be."

Back in Seravelle, the Shadow Court grew.

And as Kaelen stood before the mirror of the seven sigils, it began to shimmer.

Not with light.

But with memory.

A face appeared.

His own.

But older. Crueler. Crowned in shadow.

It spoke without sound.

You will become what you must.

Kaelen did not flinch.

He whispered back:

Then I must become what they fear.