The girl no one clapped for scrubbed marble floors in silence.
Elara wasn't the loudest. She wasn't the strongest.
She was the shadow in the corner, the forgotten name in a palace of gold and glory.
The mistake in royal blood. The sin dressed in skin.
A princess by birth. A maid by decree.
The shame of a dead king and a mother burned for impurity.
"Stop daydreaming and dust *faster."
Madam Darla's voice cracked like a whip.
Elara flinched cloth slipping, knuckles scraping raw against stone.
The statue she scrubbed an old king frozen in triumph stared down with dead eyes.
He had a sword.
She had silence.
"Princess Isla wants you. Chambers. Now"
Darla's boots clacked away, each step a dismissal.
Elara tucked a wild strand of hair beneath her servant's cap.
Fingers smelling of soap and metal.
Today was the Stone Festival once in a generation.
Kings glittered. Queens preened. Lanterns floated like captive stars.
Servants flowed through halls, unseen as water.
And Elara?
She was the grit beneath their perfume.
Isla lounged on silk cushions, golden hair spilling like coins.
"You're late," she drawled. "Brush my hair. Then fetch the emerald gown."
Elara's fingers move, skilled at vanishing.
Isla's hair gleamed like sunlight.
Elara's was bound tight a secret to erase.
One born to be worshipped.
The other not meant to exist.
"Oh…" Isla's voice sang. "Don't stare at the Stone today. They say it burns the impure."
The brush paused.
Then moved.
The Grand Hall breathed firelight.
Velvet banners. Soft harmonies. Laughter laced with incense.
And at its heart the Sacred Stone.
Obsidian-black. Veined with blue pulse.
"Alive."
Elara stood at the back spine stiff, head bowed, knuckles still stinging
Whispers haunted her:
"Cursed."
"Her mother's shame."
"Shouldn't have lived."
She believed in silence.
In counting footsteps.
In breathing shallow.
Then the air changed.
A hum rose from the marble.
Ancient. Hungry.
The Stone "glowed "
A flicker
A pulse
Then...LIGHT.
Gasps tore through the hall.
The High Priest stumbled back.
"It's… awakening"
Nobles surged. Some knelt. Others fled.
Elara shrank against the wall
But the light *found her
A burst struck her chest.
Frost and flame.
Sinking into bone.
It didn't burn.
It called.
The hall erupted.
"She touched it!"
"WITCH"
SILENCE..... The High Priest's roar cut through chaos. "She never moved.
The Stone… chose her.
All eyes locked on Elara.
The maid.
The bastard.
The girl who wasn't supposed to exist.
Glow clung to her like starlight
King Theron stormed forward robes like gathering storms.
His gaze scraped over her… and hardened to stone.
"Seize her."
Guards lunged. But one hesitated.
The same guard who'd kicked her yesterday.
His hand hovered not to grab, but to shield.
Elara didn't run.
Not from courage.
Something deep in her bones had opened its eyes.
The Stone pulsed behind her..Slow. Steady.
A second heartbeat.
The girl no one clapped for… was now the heart of a prophecy.
And the court that once ignored her
Could no longer look away.