I was born to the sound of ringing bells, a celebration meant to celebrate my rule—until my half-brother was born, and the kingdom decided he was worth more than me.

I have known since I was a kid that my crown was fragile. It sat on my head as a promise, not a fact. My mother had been a slave from Caibecia — a gift to my dad, who then fell in love and married her, resulting in me being born.

The first heir of Veozia.

The Veozian kingdom had never had a queen before, and people gasped in horror when father named me officially an heir once my mother died when I was only few months old. The court did not like that in the slightest.

Jacryll Kōrei was called a miracle when I turned two years old. The one everyone had been waiting for. The true heir.

I was too young to understand the shift, but I would come to feel it early on.

At first, I did not resent Jacryll. He was my brother, small and fragile, eyes the same deep blue as the sea. He reached for me with tiny hands, and I let him, not knowing that one day those hands would tighten into a grip that would threaten to push me from the throne that was once promised to me.

The first time I realised things had changed, I was five years old. Court gatherings had always placed me at my father's side, my tiny hand dwarfed in his as he introduced me to nobles and generals. That day, I reached for him, but he did not take my hand. Instead, he lifted Jacryll onto his knee.

They told me it's because Jacryll was younger and needed to be closer with father. I believed it for a while, being a kid who didn't know better.

Father honoured the promise of my birthright, keeping my title intact. But I learned quickly that promises and power are not the same. Jacryll and I were not enemies then. We were children, siblings who played in the gardens and sparred in the training yards. We laughed, we argued, we whispered secrets in the dead of night.

A princess in title, an heir in name, and a girl who knew that the world was searching for an excuse to take everything from her.

A daughter was a placeholder. A son was an heir. That was what the shadows in the castle whispered whenever I ran past the walls, giggling and waving around with my beautiful silk green dress.

A placeholder could be removed and replaced. I remember thinking the ministers who always seemed to hesitate before addressing me, the servants who exchanged glances when they thought I wasn't looking—were simply people who did not know me yet. That if I spoke with them, if I showed them I was worthy, they would come to love me as they did my father. But each year that passed, it became apparent that Jacryll was everyone's future.

So I tried.

I memorised every name, every title. I studied diplomacy, history, war. I sat beside my father in council meetings, listening to talks of trade routes and military campaigns, my fingers curled into fists beneath the table. I trained with the sword, my arms aching from the weight of a blade not meant for someone my size, my instructors murmuring that it was unbecoming for a future queen at the age of fourteen.

All while Jacryll was sleeping or scaring the royal horses. But that was okay for everyone, because he was not me. He was not a woman.

When Jacryll turned ten, a feast was held in his honour. The king's son, the banners read. The great hall was filled with nobles, their laughter ringing against the stone walls of my home, wine flowing like rivers as the servants had to keep pouring the drinks. My Father sat at the head of the grand table, and beside him, in the seat of an heir, was Jacryll.

I stood at the side, watching as my father rested a hand on his son's shoulder, as he leaned in to speak to him with quiet pride. I had never seen him look at me like that.

And for the first time, I felt it. The sharp, hollow ache of understanding.

This throne was never mine. It had always been his. And If I was to be a queen, I would need to fight my own half-brother.

The taste of betrayal was vile, settling on my tongue like bitter poison, something I was too young at twelve to name but old enough to feel. I swallowed it down, straightened my back and smiled and talked with the nobles who greeted me. A proper princess. An obedient daughter.

Jacryll Kōrei was Veozia's golden son, and I was his shadow. He was too stupid to understand things like that, because he did not care for the lessons given to him on leadership like I did.

On that same night, I did not cry nor rage. I sat in my chambers, staring at my reflection in the polished silver mirror I was gifted when I turned ten. Because on my tenth name-day, I did not get a feast in my honour.

Dark brown eyes stared back at me. I traced the curve of my jaw, the slope of my nose and wondered if this was a punishment for my mum. My father's blood ran through my veins, but my face belonged to Caibecia.

I knew then that they would take my crown the first chance they got when Jacryll was deemed old enough. So I started to work only even harder, ignoring the way my father scolded me or the way Jacryll stopped following me around due to his mother planting nasty thoughts of me in his head.

The next morning, I requested new tutors. Masters of war, of statecraft, of deception. I sharpened my mind as I did my sword, I trained my tongue to weave words through the air like my blade did all the older I got.

Jacryll had become aware of his status only few years later, and it was clear by the way he sneered at me now, his face twisted with the arrogance of someone who had been taught his worth from the moment he was born. The way his mother ushered him away from me like I was beneath him, as though the mere presence of my blood was tainted by my mere existence.

He was still my brother.

But I was no longer just his sister.

I was a queen waiting to be crowned, and if I had to burn everything around me to do it, then I'd let it burn.

WC: 1101
TOTAL: 1101