Crown Of The Forbidden Heir

CHAPTER 1 

The Boy They Should Have Killed

My name was never meant to be written in any royal record, let alone whispered in prophecies.

I was supposed to die at birth.

At least, that’s what the priest once told me, right before he tried to drown me in holy water.

But I survived.

I always survived.

And because the kingdom of Voranthia didn’t know what else to do with a cursed child who refused to die, they hid me deep in the Ironwood Mountains, where magic was outlawed, monsters roamed unchecked, and forgotten things learned to breathe.

That’s where my story begins, not at a palace, not with a crown, but in a ruined fortress that smelled like damp stone, sharp metal, and the constant threat of death.

And in that fortress, on a night when the sky burned red, someone tried—again—to kill me.

The first sign was the silence.

Normally the Ironwood was full of sound. Groaning trees. Grinding gears from the old fortress walls. The metallic hum of my power leaking from my skin. But tonight… nothing.

Even the wind held its breath.

I was at the training yard, bruised knuckles pressed against cold stone, when the torches flickered. The shadows stretched unnaturally long. My skin prickled.

“Show yourself,” I said.

The silence mocked me.

Then a whisper—dry, ancient—slithered behind me:

“Found you.”

I spun and slammed my fist forward. A blast of iron-colored energy exploded from my palm, lighting the courtyard in sharp silver light. The figure staggered back, hood slipping just enough to reveal pale eyes shining with fanatic purpose.

Another damned assassin.

“How many is that this month?” I muttered.

The assassin drew a dagger etched with holy runes. “A monster like you should not exist.”

“Trust me,” I said, cracking my neck, “I’m painfully aware.”

He lunged.

I moved faster.

We crashed into the training rack, swords clattering around us. Steel kissed my cheek as the dagger scraped past. I grabbed his wrist and twisted, bone snapping with a clean crack.

He didn’t even scream.

Fanatics rarely did.

“You should’ve stayed home,” I said. “People like you never walk away.”

He spat blood. “I do not need to walk away. I only need to stall you.”

My heartbeat slowed.

Stall me?

For what, The explosion hit a second later.

The fortress gates blew inward, fire ripping through the courtyard as more robed figures poured inside—ten, twenty, maybe more, all carrying weapons designed to kill one thing:

Me.

I cursed under my breath.

“Well,” I said to the assassin as I shoved him aside, “this is going to be annoying.”

The next thirty seconds were nothing but fire, screams, metal, and magic.

I ducked as a spear shot past my head. I kicked off the wall, flipped behind another attacker, and blasted him with a surge of silver energy. Bodies dropped around me, alive but unconscious—I wasn’t the monster they insisted I was.

Still, they kept coming.

I didn’t kill them because I couldn’t.

Not because of mercy.

Because every time I got too close to losing control, the fortress walls trembled. The stones shivered. The ancient metal veins running through the mountain vibrated, reacting to me.

My power wasn’t normal. It was connected to the land, to the metal in the earth itself.

And if I unleashed all of it…

The whole mountain could collapse.

That was why the kingdom feared me. Why the priesthood wanted me dead. Why rumors of “the Iron Vessel” spread like wildfire.

And why the fortress commander, Captain Ronin Thorne, found me punching a blasting rune in frustration as smoke filled the yard.

A booming voice cut through the chaos:

“Kael! Move!”

I dove aside an instant before Ronin’s massive broadsword carved a burning arc of red-hot steel across the courtyard. Three attackers went flying.

Ronin landed beside me, armor glowing molten at the seams.

“Couldn’t sleep without starting a war?” he said.

I snorted. “This wasn’t me.”

“Everything is you,” he said dryly. “Now get behind me.”

“Not happening.”

“Kael—”

“Ronin,” I said, grabbing another attacker by the collar and slamming him into a pillar, “they came to kill me. Again. I’m not hiding.”

He sighed the exhausted sigh of a man who regretted raising me.

“To think,” he muttered, “I once hoped you’d grow up quiet.”

I grinned. “That was your mistake.”

Ronin was the closest thing I had to a father. He’d rescued me as a child, raised me, trained me, and occasionally knocked sense into me with the flat of his blade. He knew what I was capable of. Knew the danger I carried in my blood.

And he still believed in me.

Sometimes that scared me more than the assassins.

A second explosion rocked the gate tower.

Ronin’s eyes narrowed. “They’ve laid charges.”

“Meaning?”

“They’re not here to kill you, Kael.”

I froze.

“They want to capture you.”

That meant only one thing:

This wasn’t the priesthood.

This was bigger.

“Who?” I asked.

Ronin didn’t answer.

Because the answer arrived himself.

A tall, armored man stepped through the smoke. His armor was blackened steel, marked with the sigil of a serpent swallowing a sun. His face was hidden by a mask of hammered obsidian.

My body tensed instantly.

I knew that sigil.

Everyone did.

The Royal Order of Shadows.

The King’s elite hunters.

“Kael Valerius,” the masked commander said. “By royal decree, you are to be taken alive.”

Ronin snarled, “Over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged.”

The commander raised a gauntleted hand—and a chain of pitch-black metal whipped through the air straight toward me.

I caught it with my bare hand.

The metal hissed under my grip. It wasn’t natural. It pulsed like a living thing, draining heat, draining energy, trying to wrap around my wrist.

My magic surged violently in response.

Ronin shouted, “Kael, don’t—”

Too late.

The chain pulsed.

My power exploded.

Silver-white energy blasted out in a wave, throwing assassins and royal hunters alike into the air. The ground cracked beneath my feet. The fortress walls groaned.

But the chain didn’t break.

It tightened.

And the commander didn’t move an inch.

“Fascinating,” he said. “The Vessel’s power reacts instinctively. The king will be very pleased.”

“Let. Me. Go.”

“Not a chance.”

Ronin charged him with a roar, sword raised. The commander snapped the chain, yanking me forward to intercept him. I hit Ronin hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.

“Ronin!” I shouted.

He grunted, shoving me aside. “Run.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Kael. Run.”

The commander walked toward us slowly, like he had all the time in the world.

“You cannot win,” he said. “The throne needs the Vessel. The kingdom needs you contained. Surrender, and I will ensure you remain alive.”

“Not interested,” I growled.

Ronin pushed me behind him, taking a defensive stance. “Go to the lower tunnels. Now.”

“Ronin—”

“This is an order.”

The chain tightened around my wrist again. The commander’s magic pressed like ice against my skin.

Ronin’s voice broke through the chaos, raw and desperate:

“Kael, please. If they take you—this kingdom won’t survive what comes next.”

I clenched my jaw.

I hated running.

But I hated the thought of losing Ronin more.

So I did the one thing I’d never done in my life.

I obeyed.

I turned and sprinted through the smoke toward the fortress interior, the chain dragging and sparking against the stone behind me until my own magic shattered it.

More hunters chased me. I blasted them back, keeping my power controlled, controlled, controlled—because losing control meant catastrophic destruction.

“Almost there,” I muttered as I reached the lower stairwell.

Then a blade sliced across my side.

I stumbled, cursing.

A woman stepped into view she was masked, dual blades drawn, fast as a shadow.

“You’re quicker than the others,” I said through clenched teeth.

She tilted her head. “I was trained to handle monsters.”

I gave a humorless laugh. “Good thing I’m not one.”

“Oh,” she said, charging, “you will be.”

Her blades flashed.

My magic flared.

Silver energy lit the stairwell, and she flew backward, slamming into the wall.

I didn’t see if she got up.

I kept running.

Down. Down. Down.

Into the forbidden tunnels beneath the Ironwood Fortress—tunnels even Ronin didn’t like to speak about.

The air grew colder. Older. Heavier.

The stone walls turned black.

Metal veins glowed faintly with iron-colored light.

My power hummed louder, resonating with the ancient ore.

I didn’t know why the mountain reacted to me.

Only that it always had.

And that was exactly why the kingdom feared me.

The prophecy said the Vessel would rise when the iron in the earth awakened.

And when that happened…

A new king would fall.

A new throne would rise.

And the world would change in blood and fire.

Of course, the prophecy didn’t specify one crucial detail:

Who the Vessel would destroy.

Or who he would crown.

And that uncertainty was why every king for the last twenty years wanted me dead—but this one…

This one wanted to use me.

As a weapon, as a puppet, as a crown forged in chains.

Not happening.

Not then.

Not ever.

My breath hitched as I reached the end of the tunnel—a dead end.

Or, for anyone else, it would have been.

But for me…

The wall pulsed.

The metal veins glowed brighter.

My heartbeat synced with the mountain, the same way it always did when I was close to losing control.

“Open,” I whispered.

The stone rippled like liquid.

A doorway formed where no doorway should have been.

The sanctuary of the Iron Vessel.

My sanctuary.

I slipped inside as shouts echoed behind me. Hunters were getting close.

The doorway sealed shut, drowning the noise.

Darkness swallowed me.

Then faint blue flames lit themselves along the walls. The chamber was circular, carved from smooth stone, with veins of iron threading through the floor like roots.

In the center stood an ancient metal pedestal, shaped like a crown without jewels.

The cradle of the Vessel’s power.

My birthright—apparently.

I hated the thing.

But tonight, I didn’t have a choice.

Footsteps echoed outside the sealed chamber.

Voices muffled by stone.

“Find a way in!”

“He can’t disappear!”

I inhaled deeply.

Ronin was still fighting above.

Bleeding.

Maybe dying.

And I was here.

Hiding.

Coward.

No.

Not hiding.

Preparing.

I placed my hand on the pedestal.

Cold metal met my palm.

A surge of power shot through me, flooding my veins with molten silver. The chamber trembled. Ancient wards hummed awake for the first time in years.

The hunters outside yelled.

The wall bulged inward.

They were breaking through.

Dammit.

More power surged up my arm, burning, twisting, reshaping itself. I gritted my teeth, fighting it, controlling it, forcing it into obedience.

The Vessel inside me roared, hungry, wild.

“No,” I hissed. “You don’t get to control me.”

The wall cracked.

A blade pierced through.

Then another.

The chamber trembled violently.

My power surged higher.

If I let it out—they would all die.

If I kept it in—I would.

A shadow fell over the cracked doorway.

Not a hunter.

A woman.

She wasn’t masked.

And she wasn’t attacking.

She wore dusty travel leathers, a hood pulled low, a dagger in one hand—but she wasn’t part of the king’s hunters.

Her eyes met mine through the half-shattered wall—sharp, bright, and furious.

She looked my age.

Maybe a little younger.

Beautiful, if I weren’t bleeding and pissed off.

She shouted, “Unless you want this mountain to kill us all, you need to stop whatever you’re doing!”

I stared at her, breath heavy. “Who the hell are you?”

“Your only chance at surviving the next five minutes!”

The wall cracked again.

The hunters were seconds away.

She stepped closer. “Kael Valerius, you need to come with me. Now.”

I froze.

“How do you know my name?”

She gave a tight smile.

“Because I’m the one who was sent to save you.”

The wall exploded inward.

The hunters charged.

And my life—again—changed violently.