Death is Eternal #454 by GIC
The Glass Crown of Veragna and The Iron Crown of Virelia
Contents
The Glass Crown of Veragna (genre: fantastique)
The Iron Crown of Virelia (genre: fantasy)
The Glass Crown of Veragna
Genre: fantastique
Word count: 497
The bells of Saint Zareth’s Cathedral tolled thirteen times — one for each ghost in the royal bloodline.
Above the city of Veragna, the sky churned like soup stirred by a forgotten god. Thunder cracked in lost dialects. Rain fell upwards. The final torch guttered and died inside the cathedral’s ribbed stone vaults.
It was time.
Alferez VII, High Prince of Corval and Warden of the Nine Rivers, stepped barefoot across the obsidian floor, his cloak of wet silk trailing behind like a funeral shroud. The cathedral doors had closed without a touch or a wind. The living were not in control here.
“Come forward,” the Voice of the Anointed whispered, her veil heavy with dew from a realm no map had ever dared include.
Alferez said nothing. His lips moved in prayer, though to which god, which ancestor, which mask of fate, he could no longer be sure. His gaze stayed fixed on the dais, where the Glass Crown of Veragna hovered. It spun, slow and deliberate, above a jagged plinth carved from salt. No chains held it. No fire lit it. Yet it glowed with the light of all things buried.
He was to be crowned Imperator of All Velha — a title not spoken aloud since the year the rivers reversed their flow.
Each step across the salted floor drew the air tighter. A second heartbeat, older than his own, echoed beneath the stones. The Voice of the Anointed lifted a dagger shaped from the antlers of a sleepless stag.
“Do you come by conquer or confession?” she asked, her voice echoing backward in time.
“Neither,” Alferez said, though his throat ached. “I come by blood.”
The congregation behind the veil — nobles, bishops, scholars, ghosts — hissed like sand. The salt groaned.
The plinth cracked.
The crown dipped. It cast spectral light across Alferez’s brow and gave off the scent of seawater and betrayal. A single drop fell — not water, nor oil, but memory itself. It struck his cheek like acid.
Within it, he saw a woman with wolf’s eyes lying in a cradle of fire. He saw the drowned city of Emeret, where monarchs danced in chains. He saw himself — aged, whithered, crowned and utterly alone.
Still, the Voice did not flinch.
She drew the stag-dagger across his palm. Blood welled, black and cold. Where it struck the salt, blue flowers bloomed and withered in the same breath.
Alferez did not cry out. But above him, laughter rolled through the vaults — long, slow and not entirely human.
Smoke poured from the organ pipes. The mouths of the saints, carved in stone, began to sing. The plinth cracked in half. The crown fell.
Alferez caught it. It was lighter than ash. And colder than mercy.
He placed it upon his head.
The cathedral fell still. The ghosts bowed. Flame returned. Time resumed.
“Imperator,” the Voice said, kneeling.
“Of what?” he asked.
She looked up.
“Of all that was — and all that cannot die.”
Outside, the storm applauded.
The end
The Iron Crown of Virelia
Genre: fantasy
Word count: 1,048
The bells of Caelith Cathedral tolled like war drums, echoing through the white-stone avenues of Virelia’s capital. Beneath towering spires carved with angels and wolves, the people had gathered — farmers in linen cloaks, merchants in silks, children perched on shoulders to glimpse history in motion. The air trembled with song and smoke.
And at the heart of it all, ascending the marble steps beneath banners of gold and emerald, was Lord-General Navoran of Aerlinth.
He moved alone, his cloak flaring like a war standard, the chain of office heavy with the weight of conquests. In less than six seasons, he had bent the Free Cities of the Veil to his rule. The Council of Ashes had fled, the last rebel dukes had knelt — and now, he had come for a crown older than the realm itself.
Inside, the cathedral was a vault of shadow and glass. Columns like frozen trees stretched toward a vaulted ceiling, lost in candlelight. The high altar, shaped from blackstone and bronze, held the artefact that had not graced a mortal brow in three centuries: the Iron Crown of Virelia.
“Shall I?” the high magister asked; he was a trembling old man in robes that smelled of ink and relics.
Navoran did not answer.
He walked past the altar, past the carved saints and silent priests, and took the crown in both hands. It was cold as grave-iron.
Then he turned and faced the people.
No ceremony. No bishop’s blessing.
He placed the crown upon his head.
“I am Navoran, son of Aerlinth. I claim the throne of Virelia not by blood, but by right of conquest, by fire and steel. Let the realm be whole again.”
The voice rang out in the cathedral, deep and unflinching.
No one cheered. No one moved.
But outside, the bells of Caelith rang louder.
In the shadows of the northern transept, a woman watched with narrowed eyes.
Alessa Morraine, of the High Order of Candlekeepers, had seen kings crowned before. But this was no king — this was a warlord in silk.
She pressed a hand to the hilt beneath her cloak, felt the pulse of the blade hidden there. An old weapon, older than the cathedral. Her duty was older still.
The Iron Crown was forged when the five kingdoms of old were one. According to the old texts, it could only be worn by one chosen by the Light Undimmed — a power not seen in centuries.
Yet the crown had not burned him.
Had it chosen him?
Alessa slipped into the crowd, thoughts coiling like storm winds.
They called it the “Day of Iron.” By dusk, banners bearing Navoran’s sigil — a broken wheel — flew from every battlement in Caelith. His commanders drank from chalices carved with the faces of gods long forgotten, and his scribes penned decrees by candlelight.
The nobles of the land, wary and wounded, arrived in the following days. They kissed his ring, they offered coin, some even pledged their own heirs in service.
But not all bent the knee.
On the seventh night, a stranger arrived at the palace gates. He wore a traveller’s cloak and bore no sigil, but the guards let him pass. Some said his eyes glowed like coals.
He was led to the king’s chamber, where Navoran sat at a long table, studying a map of the Eastern Highlands.
“You come unannounced,” Navoran said, not looking up.
“I come unafraid,” the stranger said. His voice was like wind through old stone. “I am Malvian of the Deep Order. That crown you wear is cursed.”
Navoran laughed, low and humourless. “Cursed to rule, perhaps.”
“The Iron Crown was forged not only to unify the realm,” Malvian said, stepping closer. “It binds the will of the land to the bearer. It grants power, yes — but at a cost. The old kings heard the voices of the gods. They were driven mad.”
Navoran stood, eyes flashing. “Then let the gods speak. I’ll answer them in kind.”
And with that, he turned away.
But that night, the voices came.
Alessa was in the cathedral crypt when she heard the first scream. She rushed through the tunnels, past the resting places of the old monarchs, up into the moonlit nave.
Navoran was on the floor before the altar, hands pressed to his temples, the Iron Crown cast aside.
“They won’t stop,” he whispered. “They whisper in a tongue I cannot name — fire, war, blood. Always blood.”
Alessa knelt beside him.
“You took the crown by force,” she said. “But it is not power alone that keeps it.”
“I conquered this land,” Navoran spat. “I brought peace.”
“You brought silence. Peace is earned, not enforced.”
The warlord looked at her, eyes hollow. “Then how do I silence them?”
Alessa’s hand moved to the hilt again. But she paused.
“There is a rite,” she said at last. “A binding. You must walk the Pilgrim’s Path to High Viren and kneel at the Temple of the Flame. Only there will the land judge you worthy — or burn you.”
Navoran stared at the crown.
“Then I shall walk,” he said.
It took forty days.
Through forests and fens, through mountain passes and desert ash, Navoran walked. Alone.
At times, pilgrims watched from afar, unsure if the tales were true. A king walking barefoot. A crown borne in his pack, wrapped in linen and regret.
At the Temple of the Flame, the priests refused him entry.
He knelt outside for three nights.
On the dawn of the fourth, the doors opened.
Alessa stood waiting, clad in grey.
“Enter,” she said.
He did.
He placed the Iron Crown upon the altar and knelt before the Flame.
For a moment, nothing. Then, light, terrible and white, burst from the fire.
Navoran screamed.
Alessa turned away.
When the light faded, the Iron Crown lay cold.
Navoran was gone.
In his place was a black mark, shaped like a wheel.
They say no king has claimed the Iron Crown since. It lies in Caelith still, untouched on the altar, beneath a cathedral built for gods and ghosts.
Some say Navoran lives, cursed to wander without name or voice.
Others say the land spared him, but would never let him rule.
Only Alessa knows the truth.
And she does not speak of it.