The Heir Who Shouldn't Exist

Screams still echoed through the marble halls of Ravaryn Palace.

The Chancellor's body had barely been removed, his lips still blackened, when the whispers began to fly like arrows. Poison. Treason. A traitor among the court. And most disturbingly the return of prophecy.

Elara stood just outside the ballroom in the shadows of a stained-glass alcove, her thoughts racing. The message Seryth gave her burned in her memory:

"The Crown is splintering. The heir knows the fire lives."

But what heir?

She'd assumed it was Kaelith. The only crowned prince. The only one who had the power to condemn her to the pyre. But now…

Now, she wasn't so sure.

"Elara," Seryth hissed beside her, "we need to move. If they think you had anything to do with the poisoning"

"They don't know I exist," she muttered.

He raised a brow. "Your reflection stabbed a man in the archives and the palace is buzzing about a ghost in the court. Don't count on invisibility anymore."

She closed her eyes. The impostor. Her face. Her voice.

But not her.

"Where is Kaelith?" she asked.

"Locked in council. The guards sealed the upper floor. No one gets in or out without crest rings or blood ID."

That meant nobles only. She had neither.

Elara exhaled and looked back at the now-dark ballroom. The crown. The poisoning. The impostor's whisper. It was all connected and it was all accelerating. Someone wanted chaos.

And someone wanted Kaelith afraid.

She moved quickly through the side passages toward the old chapel wing. A place most nobles avoided now half-ruined after the old mage wars. But she remembered what lay beneath it.

The Baptismal Vault.

Most had forgotten it existed. But Elara hadn't. That's where Ravaryn's royal children were once blessed in blood, salt, and fire. Where prophecies were whispered and burned to ash. Where heirlooms were hidden.

She pried the rusted door open, the hinges groaning.

Seryth followed, silent and alert. His hand hovered near his belt — his usual calm now replaced with thinly veiled tension.

They descended into darkness. The walls wept salt. Torches lit with enchanted flame, and the scent of old blood mixed with incense.

At the vault's center stood a stone altar. And above it, carved in ancient lettering, the phrase:

"Only the rightful flame may endure the truth."

"I've been here before," she whispered, brushing her fingers across the altar's edge. "When I was eight. The High Priestess took me. Said the flame didn't lie."

"And what did it say?"

"That I wasn't meant to wear the Phoenix Crown."

Seryth turned. "But you did."

Elara smiled bitterly. "And look how that turned out."

She stepped closer to the altar. Something shimmered beneath it- a hidden compartment now exposed by erosion. She pried it open.

Inside was a glass vial. Blood-red. Sealed with a wax sigil.

Seryth reached for it, but Elara snatched it first.

A memory stirred. Her mother's voice, sharp and quiet:

"Only one heir may carry the true fire. The other must die."

Elara's hands shook.

"What is it?" Seryth asked.

She turned to him, eyes wide. "I think… I think I had a twin."

The words sounded foreign, even to her.

A silence fell.

She stared at the vial her own blood, or someone else's? The implication was a blade: If there was another, and the prophecy named only one… then one had to burn.

Again.

A thud echoed from above.

Seryth drew his blade.

Footsteps. Fast. Familiar.

Kaelith.

He emerged from the stairwell, alone, disheveled. Not like the poised prince from the ballroom. His eyes locked on Elara instantly.

"I knew I'd find you here," he said hoarsely.

Seryth stepped between them. "Don't."

But Kaelith raised his hands. "I'm not here to call guards. I'm here because I need answers."

Elara's voice was steel. "Then start asking."

He stared at her. "You're supposed to be dead."

She didn't blink. "Maybe I am."

A pause. Then he stepped closer, slowly.

"When I saw you at the gala… the way you stood… looked at me… it was like déjà vu. Then I remembered"

"What?"

"A prophecy," he said, voice tight. "One I was warned to forget. The fire would rise again wearing another's face."

Seryth's breath caught.

Kaelith looked between them. "Tell me the truth. Are you Elara Valeblume?"

The chamber seemed to hold its breath.

She took a step forward.

"Yes," she said quietly. "And no. I'm what's left of her."

Kaelith didn't speak for a long moment. Then, slowly, he drew something from his cloak.

A second vial.

Twin to the one Elara found.

He held it up. "This was hidden in the prince's baptismal records. My baptismal records."

Elara's blood chilled. "What are you saying?"

Kaelith swallowed hard. "I don't think I'm the true heir."

Silence fell like a blade.

Then, above them, a voice clear, cold, mocking echoed from the stairwell.

"No, you're not."

They turned.

Standing at the top of the steps, dressed in a mirror image of Elara's old coronation robes, was the impostor.

And behind her?

The High Priestess.

Alive.