Burning Crown Novels & Stories

Althea fought her way back to Argos for Lysandros and helped him reclaim the throne, only to find herself trapped in the enemy kingdom of Thrace, wearing a slave's collar for three full years. Through three years of mortal danger, being dragged behind chariots, and bone-chilling winters, Althea survived on a single conviction: her betrothed, Lysandros, would come to rescue her. But when she finally set foot in the royal city again, what awaited her was not an embrace. It was a heavy golden laurel crown pressed against her brow, the Sacred Flame seal clutched in another woman's hand, and a royal heir growing in that woman's womb. She clung to one last hope: perhaps they had cast her aside onl

Celeste: “I refuse your terms. I will not become the thunder that refuses to die. I will become the thunder that refuses to die alone. The storm does not outlive the ones I love. It lives because of them. Take it or leave it.” I reach up and rip the cracked Crown of Dacia off my head. Hold it out. The Thunder Crown screams (rage, fear, longing). Then it lunges. Not at me. At the circle. Lightning pours into all seven of us at once. It burns. It remakes. It binds. The two crowns shatter and reform as one (smaller, warmer, alive).

But he had left something behind. In the center of the square, on the altar where the rejection had happened, was a new item. A crown made of silver-glass and black fire. "The Crown of the Eleventh Cycle," the Chronicler’s voice whispered from the air. "The one Jackson was trying to forge with your son’s light." Eryx walked to the crown, his crimson eyes narrowing. "What do we do with it, Darlene?"

With a shaky breath, she stepped forward, the weight of the crown heavy in her hands. "I choose," she whispered. The words were a vow. A promise. A curse. As the crown touched her brow, something within her shifted , a spark, a pulse of power that was both foreign and familiar. The moment the cold metal made contact with her skin, the pain was immediate. A searing heat shot through her, like fire in her veins, burning her from the inside out. She gasped, stumbling back, clutching at the crown as if it might rip her apart.

“Whatever it is. I told you in the yard. I told you on the terrace not an hour ago. I don’t care what you’re hiding under that wrap. I have never cared. I only care that you’re standing in front of me right now, terrified, and I can’t fix it because I don’t know what it is.” Above us, mounted in its glass case at the end of the hall the way it had stood for three hundred years, the old crown of the realm caught the torchlight and threw it back in broken glittering pieces, watching, the way it always watched, the way every crown in this palace watched every secret that ever tried to survive beneath its notice and, sooner or later, failed.

she asked, her voice a whisper. “Tillium is the only known source that is able to fatally wound those of royal descent,” he explained. “Grandmother Sheloah is a descendant of Shirin royalty.” “Your father told me that schorl could wound me and that’s why they had me bound in schorl.” Darius let out a little chuckle. “Yes, schorl is known to wound royals, pretty badly at that, but it is not fatal to us. Schorl is only lethal to celestials who do not descend from true royal blood.”

It wasn't very tall, but it was wide enough and high enough that we could enter if we bent over. I gently pushed aside the vines that hid it and stepped inside. There was a stairway that went down deep. "Let's go." I ran down the steps, moving rapidly. "Don't go too fast. That might effect your special sense or whatever you need to locate the crown." But I shouldn't have worried. The crown pieces already embedded in my flesh began to burn. I reached the bottom of the stairs and had to choose whether to go left or right. I went right. Immediately, the burning subsided. "This way." I went left.

I ask them. " It's reducing to ashes." Vlad mutters, surprised. " What?! Then get it off of me." I exclaim and start squirming. Slowly, the embers of ash fall from my head and I touch my hair to feel nothing on my head. " It vanished?" I say. " Yes. The crown burned at your touch." Jasper says. " Such a pity, the crown was beautiful." Alex whines. " It recognised the blood pumping in your veins and evaporated. It realeased all the energy binded in the crown and vested it upon you." Kai says.

“I’d burn it down before I’d call it mine.” “You’d be burning your share,” Roman said, his voice deep and even, like he was trying to talk her off a roof. She swung her head around, locking onto those gray eyes—hard, steady, not giving an inch. “Walk away if you want, but you’re tossing it all to me.” Her teeth ground together. “I don’t want your dirty cash.” “It’s not mine yet,” he fired back, quick and sure. “It’s ours. And if we don’t sort this mess, it’s gone for good.”

I skimmed the text, my eyes darting from line to line, trying to make sense of it. *Project Inferno— Weaponization of Wildfires.* My breath caught in my throat. Weaponization? what the actual hell...? I flipped through the pages, my pulse quickening as the details unfolded before me.