Red Queen

They say the crown chooses the queen—but what happens when the crown bleeds?

The sun bled across the sky like a wounded soldier as Mareth stepped into the Hall of Judgment. The throne stood empty, its velvet cushions stained with time, not blood. Not yet.

In the kingdom of Velvra, power was born in veins—not names. For centuries, the Redbloods, marked by the crimson shimmer in their eyes, had ruled with unmatched psychic strength. The commonfolk—Clearbloods—served, obeyed, and endured. Until now.

Mareth Vale had no shimmer in her eyes. Her blood was clear. Or so they thought.

She’d grown up in the mines of Norell, her hands blistered and lungs blackened. The Redbloods never visited the mines. Their orders came through soldiers, and their punishments fell like storms. When Mareth's brother had been executed for stealing a loaf of rationed bread, something inside her shattered. Not grief. Not sorrow. Something... dangerous.

That night, she'd touched the cold, iron walls of the prison and made them melt like wax.

The news spread like wildfire. A Clearblood girl with Redblood power.

The impossible had happened.

Now, she stood before the ancient council—eight Redblood nobles with eyes glowing like burning coals. Behind them, the Iron Crown hovered mid-air, rotating slowly. The relic was alive, forged with psychic metal that bonded only to those with royal power. Generations had passed, but the Iron Crown never chose wrongly.

“Approach,” said Lord Arven, his voice like cracked stone.

Mareth took a breath. “What if I refuse the test?” she asked, defiant.

The hall murmured.

“Then we kill you,” replied Lady Nyra, smiling faintly. “For heresy. And the world forgets your name.”

Mareth stepped forward.

The crown descended slowly, humming with power. The closer it came, the more the pressure in her skull built. It wanted something. Demanded something. Blood? No—will. Rage. Control.

Her knees buckled.

She thought of her brother, of her mother wasting away in a healer’s tent, of the thousands in the mines still bound in chains.

She stood. “I don’t want to wear this crown,” she said through gritted teeth. “I want to break it.”

The crown stopped.

Time did too.

The nobles gasped as the Iron Crown cracked—just a hairline fracture—but enough to shake the world.

Then it floated gently onto her head.

The silence shattered as voices roared—some in awe, others in horror. The nobles fell to their knees one by one. Not in loyalty. In fear.

The first Clearblood Queen had risen.

Weeks Later

The city of Valorin burned with red banners stitched with silver thread. The old coat of arms—two serpent-heads devouring each other—was replaced with a phoenix, wings ablaze, rising from a shattered crown.

Mareth sat in the throne she once hated. Not because she desired power. Because power had always been the enemy. But change could not come without it.

The Redblood nobility remained under her watch. The mines had been freed. Psychic abilities were being studied anew—not as a weapon of birthright, but a phenomenon of will. Of trauma. Of resistance.

Still, not all bowed willingly. Rebels brewed in the shadows, some calling her a fraud, others a blasphemy. She knew peace was not promised.

But she’d changed something that day.

The Iron Crown still sat on her head—but it no longer whispered demands. Instead, it pulsed with quiet energy. As if it, too, was learning.

They say the crown chooses the queen. But Mareth had learned the truth:

Sometimes, the queen chooses what the crown becomes.