Kayla had always been different.
In a family that prized appearance and status above all, she was quiet, watchful. Her parents—wealthy nobles known across the countryside for their charm and prosperity—had been surprisingly kind when she was young. They were warm in their own way, loving in gestures rather than words. They clothed her, fed her, gave her a place at the table. But even then, there was a distance, a space Kayla could never seem to cross.
She saw it in the way her siblings looked at her.
Especially after the dreams began.
Kayla had spoken of them early on. Of the crown in her sleep. Of the glowing light. Of the whisper she couldn't understand. She thought her siblings would be curious, or maybe even comfort her. Instead, they laughed. Or worse—ignored her completely.
"Always the strange one," her eldest sister hissed once. "Always with your dreams."
Soon, the whispers grew louder. From the halls. The servants. The knights. Everyone in the house began to treat her differently. Not cruelly—not at first. Just…dismissively. The way you'd treat a shadow in a room full of sunlight. There, but never truly seen.
Even the gardener scolded her more harshly than the others. The cooks gave her smaller portions. The guards didn't look her in the eye. As if she were something other. Something wrong.
Her parents, though never outright unkind, said less and less as the years passed. They nodded, smiled faintly, but the warmth had cooled. They did not understand her. Not the way her dreams seemed to echo with meaning. Not the way her silence held stories she couldn't voice. And certainly not the strange light she said she saw.
Only one person ever seemed to care.
Her brother.
Ryn.
He was older—by two years—and had a gentleness none of the others carried. He was the one who sat with her when she cried. The one who slipped books beneath her pillow. The one who told her, in a quiet voice, that she wasn't mad.
"You see things we don't," he'd said once. "That's not weakness, Kayla. That might be the only real strength in this place."
But kindness in a cruel house breeds envy.
One of the knights—young, tall, and with eyes like burnished copper—had taken notice of her. Kayla had no interest in him, though he was kind enough. She barely even registered his affections. But others did.
Especially her eldest sister.
The second-born daughter, proud and sharp-tongued, had long seen herself as the center of attention. To see Kayla, the quiet one, the strange one, noticed by someone she admired—it boiled something ugly beneath her skin.
Jealousy turned into bitterness. Bitterness into rage.
A plan began to form.
It started small. A torn dress. A hidden book. A door locked from the outside during a storm. Kayla said nothing, endured it all with silent grace. But her silence only fed their fire.
One evening, they all gathered—the sisters, a few cousins, even some of the servants who had come to resent the girl with the faraway eyes. Ryn was not there. He had gone to visit a relative in the next province.
Without his shield, Kayla was vulnerable.
"We'll scare her," one whispered. "Make her stop pretending she's special."
But somewhere along the way, the plan changed. Hatred is never satisfied with fear. It always hungers for more.
What began as a prank twisted into something darker. Something violent. Something that could not be undone.
Kayla, unaware, was dreaming again.
The same mist.
The same crown.
Only this time, the light flickered—dim, struggling, like a flame pressed beneath water.
And far away, in the palace, Kael woke in the dead of night, heart racing. The girl in his dream—her face was clearer now.
Not fully.
But enough.
He could see the fear in her eyes.
Something was coming.
And this time, the dream did not whisper.
It screamed.