The city of Kael-Terun was a living monument to fire and iron. Towers rose like obsidian spires, their jagged peaks scraping the amber sky. The city bled red under the weight of the Tyrant Queen's reign—a reign built on war, strategy, and impossible victory. And yet, at the center of this empire, wrapped in marble and silk, a small miracle walked barefoot through the grand halls.
A six-year-old girl.
Her hair was white as snowfall, glinting silver-blue in the palace light. Her eyes were pools of crimson, glowing faintly like hidden rubies. She wore a dress of woven silk the color of deep rose, her feet unadorned, her fingers intertwined with the calloused hand of her maid.
And she was humming.
The tune was not from Kael-Terun. It was not from any court musician or bard. It had no lyrics, no origin. It danced on the edge of familiarity for anyone who heard it—like something they might have known in a dream. Something that was not taught, but remembered.
She did not speak often. She did not need to. The humming was enough.
They called her a miracle.
They said the Queen, blessed by the gods, had birthed the child alone.
Some whispered she had loved a wandering priest, or a scholar from across the sea.
Others swore the child was carved from marble by a forgotten angel.
But none knew the truth.
Not even the Queen.
---
Queen Seraphine sat on her obsidian throne, dressed in red silk embroidered with gold and war. Her long crimson hair was braided into a crown of its own, coiled like flame above her head. Her eyes—eyes the color of spilled wine in moonlight—watched the doors with a gaze that had stared down armies.
When they opened, and her daughter walked in, that gaze softened.
"Victoria," she said.
The name was anointed, never chosen.
The girl stopped humming as she walked the long stretch of velvet carpet, her hand letting go of the maid's. She did not bow. She simply looked up at her mother with the ancient calm of someone who knew she belonged.
Queen Seraphine stood and walked down the steps of her dais. Her movements were slow, deliberate. The court fell silent, every soldier, every noble, every servant, watching the strange stillness.
The Queen knelt.
Face to face with her child.
The hush in the room was the breath before fire.
"Victoria," Seraphine repeated. "Do you know who you are?"
The girl blinked.
"No," she said. Then after a moment, added, "But I know how I feel when I hum."
Seraphine smiled faintly. There was sadness in that smile, though none could name it. She reached forward and touched the girl's cheek.
"You are the one meant to conquer," she said softly. "You will carry the flame of Kael-Terun across the continents. You will bring unity or ruin. But none will be able to ignore your light."
Victoria tilted her head.
"Why me?"
Seraphine hesitated.
She had never asked that before.
The Queen's voice faltered.
"Because the stars burned the night you were born. Because I woke with blood on my hands and didn't know whose it was. Because an angel wept above my bed and gave me your name."
Silence followed. The girl seemed to consider it, nodding as if she understood things beyond her years.
"Then I suppose I was made for something," she said. "Even if I don't know what it is yet."
"You will," the Queen said.
Victoria looked around the great hall—the polished stone, the looming banners, the silent guards. Her crimson eyes were unreadable.
"They all look at me like I'm not supposed to be real," she said.
"That's because you're not."
Victoria blinked at her mother.
"But you are."
The Queen laughed, and it was a laugh that shook the court.
Not cruel. Not mocking.
But something tired and raw and honest.
"Yes," she said. "Maybe I am."
She rose, standing tall above the small figure. Her red robes pooled around her like fire and shadow.
"Walk with me."
They walked through the eastern wing of the palace, out past the hanging gardens and past the stone mosaics of war. The towers of Kael-Terun glowed with heat and history.
"Do you ever think about the sky?" Victoria asked.
"What about it?"
"That it never ends. That even if you flew, you couldn't find where it began."
The Queen stopped, her eyes trailing to the golden horizon.
"There are many things like that," she said. "Power. Memory. Blood."
Victoria looked up.
"Or humming."
And she hummed again.
The Queen shivered. Just for a second.
Because in that humming, there was something old. Something familiar and forgotten.
Like the hush of the world before birth.
Like the echo of a promise that hadn't yet been made.
Victoria held her mother's hand then.
And for a moment, Seraphine—Tyrant Queen of Kael-Terun, Devourer of Thrones—felt as though she were not the one guiding destiny.
But the one being carried by it.
---
Somewhere deep in the city, a wind moved through the blackstone vaults. It hummed, barely heard, a note with no source.
And somewhere else entirely, a heartbeat answered.