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.She was the mistake in royal blood. The sin dressed in the 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 through the air like a whip.Elara flinched, cloth slipping from her fingers, knuckles scraped against the stone.
The statue she scrubbed, an old king frozen in triumph, stared down at her with blank eyes.He had a sword. She had silence.
"Princess Isla wants you. Chambers. Now," Darla snapped, already turning away, boots clacking against polished marble.
Elara didn't reply. She just bent, picked up her rag, and tucked a wild strand of hair under her servant's cap. Her fingers still smelled of soap and metal.
Today was the Stone Festival, once in a generation.Kings and queens had come from across the realm. Nobles glittered like jewels. Lanterns floated beneath golden beams. Servants moved like currents, unseen and necessary.
And Elara?
She was the dirt beneath the perfume.
Still, she walked the halls with quiet steps and a straighter spine. She'd learned survival in a palace built on pride meant being invisible. Forgotten.
She entered Isla's chambers.
The princess lounged on silk cushions, golden hair cascading like coins."You're late," she said lazily. "Brush my hair. Then find the emerald gown. I want Father to weep when he sees me."
Elara moved without a word. Her fingers had become skilled at vanishing.
Isla's hair gleamed like sunlight. Elara's was always hidden, wrapped tight like a secret that needed to be erased.
One of them was born to be worshipped.The other wasn't supposed to exist.
"Oh... don't stare at the Stone during the ceremony," Isla added. "They say it punishes the impure."
The brush paused in Elara's hand.
Then moved again.
The Grand Hall gleamed like a dream woven in firelight.
Velvet banners draped the walls. Musicians played soft harmonies. Laughter twined with incense.
And at the heart of it all was the sacred stone.
Obsidian-black, veined with blue light. It pulsed faintly. Like something alive.
Elara stood at the back. She was dressed in her servant uniform tight against her spine. Head bowed. Hands clenched.
She had grown up on whispers.
"She's cursed.""She's her mother's shame.""She shouldn't have lived."
She didn't believe in curses. But she believed in silence. In counting footsteps and breathing shallow enough not to be noticed.
Then the air changed.
It was subtle at first. Like the hush before a storm.
Then came a hum ancient and low, rising from the marble beneath her shoes.
The stone glowed.
A flicker.Then a pulse.Then light.
Gasps rippled through the hall.
The priest stepped back, robes trembling. "It's… awakening."
The crowd surged forward. Nobles cried out. Some knelt. Others backed away in fear.
Elara shrank against the wall.
But the light didn't stop.
It spread.It searched.
And thenIt found her.
A burst of light struck her chest.
She couldn't scream.Couldn't move.
The glow wrapped around her like frost and flame, sinking deep into her bones.It didn't burn.
It called.
The hall erupted.
"She touched it!""She cursed the Stone!""Witch!""Witch!"
"Silence," the High Priest thundered. "She never moved. The Stone… chose her."
All heads turned.All eyes locked.
On Elara.
The maid.The bastard.The girl who wasn't supposed to exist.
She stood frozen, the glow clinging to her like starlight.
King Theron pushed forward, robes trailing like storm clouds.He looked at her, really looked, and his face turned to stone.
"Seize her."
The guards moved.
Elara didn't run.
Not out of courage.
But because something inside her, deep, ancient, and waiting, finally opened its eyes.
The stone still pulsed behind her, slow and steady.
A second heartbeat.
The girl no one clapped for…
…had become the center of a prophecy.
And the court that once ignored her
could no longer look away.