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The roar of fifty thousand voices became a living thing, a beast that fed on the light show and the pulsing beat that shook the stadium floor. Victoria Alston stood at the center of it all, her body moving through choreography so practiced it had become instinct. The stage extended like a tongue into the crowd, and she owned every inch of it

Her voice soared over the final chorus, each note bending the air itself. This was what she did best, what she was born for according to every headline and award show. The half-fae pop icon whose voice could make you weep or dance or fall in love. Tonight, Zenith City belonged to her.

But it is all empty, she thought as she hit the high note, her arms spread wide. Every single face in this crowd, and I am still alone.

The pyrotechnics exploded on cue, gold and silver sparks raining down like manufactured stars. Her management had insisted on the extra effects for the capital city show. Everything had to be perfect for the new monarchy's elite. She spun, her crystal-embroidered bodysuit catching the light, and the crowd screamed louder.

That was when the world tilted.

The stadium lights blurred into streaks of color. The music distorted, stretching like taffy until the beat became a heartbeat, slow and thunderous. Victoria's own heart hammered against her ribs as her vision fractured into something impossible.

Fire consumed everything. Not the controlled stage pyrotechnics, but wild flames that turned the sky black with smoke. Blood covered her hands, thick and warm, the metallic scent flooding her senses. Wings spread behind her, massive and dark as midnight, casting shadows over a battlefield of broken bodies. A crown sat on her head, not made of metal but of living flame that burned without consuming her flesh.

And a voice, low and broken, whispered in her ear.

"Forgive me."

The vision hit her like a physical blow. Victoria's knees buckled beneath her weight. The microphone fell from her hand, the feedback screech barely registering over the ringing in her ears. The stage rushed up to meet her, and the last thing she heard before darkness swallowed her was the crowd's roar transforming into screams of confusion and fear.

Her final thought before consciousness fled was simple and terrifying.

I have lived this before.

The blackness pulled her under like deep water, and somewhere in the void, something ancient stirred awake.

When awareness returned, it came in pieces scattered across time. First, the distant wail of sirens cutting through muffled voices. Then the sensation of being lifted, carried, her body limp and unresponsive. Hands touched her face, her wrist, checking for signs of life she could not give.

Someone was crying. A woman's voice, high and panicked, speaking words Victoria could not quite understand through the fog. The voice sounded familiar, tugging at memories that felt both near and impossibly far away.

Sister, she thought, but could not remember why.

The world spun even with her eyes closed. Movement, rapid and urgent, as she was loaded into something that hummed with mechanical life. An ambulance, probably, though it felt wrong somehow. Too smooth. Too quiet. Medical equipment that did not belong in any hospital she knew.

"Is she going to die?" The woman's voice again, closer now, desperate.

"No." A male voice, calm and clinical. "But she needs immediate treatment. The Institute has the only equipment that can stabilize her condition."

The Institute. The word echoed in Victoria's fading consciousness, carrying weight she did not understand. A warning, perhaps, or a promise of something worse than death.

She tried to speak, to ask where they were taking her, but her mouth would not obey. Her body had become a prison, trapping her inside while strangers made decisions about her fate.

The vehicle accelerated, and the sirens grew distant. No one was following them, she realized. No press vans, no screaming fans, no managers demanding updates. Just silence and speed and the uncomfortable certainty that she was being taken somewhere she would not be allowed to leave.

Victoria fought against the darkness pulling her back under, but it was a losing battle. Whatever they had given her to sedate her was too strong, too precise. This was not the work of panicked paramedics treating a collapsed performer.

This was planned.

Her last coherent thought before the drugs claimed her completely was a fragment of the vision that had started everything. The throne room carved from black stone. The crown of living flame. The man with grey eyes who had kissed her with love and then destroyed everything she had built.

The memory that was not a memory settled into her bones like truth.

I was a queen once. And someone I loved killed me for it.

Then even that knowledge dissolved into chemical sleep, and Victoria Alston ceased to exist for a time. What remained was something older, something that had been waiting beneath her skin for twenty-three years to wake up and remember what it meant to burn the world.