A glass crown.
They said the skies bent for me the day I was born.
A comet kissed the heavens and left behind a streak of flames
a mark of kingship, they called it.
But even flames grow cold in the hands of a child.
I walked before I crawled.
Spoke before I understood.
Praised before I was known.
"A Prodigy," they whispered, bowing lower with each passing year.
I learned that to be great was to be lonely…
for none walk beside a throne.
I do not recall my mother's face.
Only the hush in her eyes
the way she smiled when the court stared too long.
She carried grace like a wound,
and gave me her silence as inheritance.
My father taught me conquest.
Taught me that a man's worth is counted in how many kneel.
He measured love in expectations
and affection in how well I could mimic gods.
"Stand straighter, Lysar."
"Speak louder."
"Don't look down unless it's upon someone."
So I became a pillar.
Marble-hard, emotionless, perfect.
Not a boy.
Not even a prince.
Just a monument.
I remember the mirror more than I remember friends.
It never lied to me.
It showed me the red but often golden eyes too bright for humility,
the shoulders not built for burden but for banners.
I was beautiful
not in the soft way of paintings,
but in the sharp, cruel beauty of blades unsheathed.
They adored me.
Feared me.
Worshipped me.
But never once…
did they know me.
There was a girl, once.
She reached for my hand in a garden I no longer visit.
She spoke of stars and stories.
I spoke of power and providence.
She called me hollow.
I called her nothing.
She left me with tears.
I left with pride intact,
and something irreparable beneath it.
I rose through the House of Ascension.
Each trial bent its knee before I arrived.
They said I was destined for the Throne of Balance.
I believed them.
I believe them still.
For if there is a god above me,
he has not revealed himself.
And until he does…
I am the highest.
But power…
has a way of carving out the man inside the mask.
Of turning worship into weight.
Of making you forget what warmth ever felt like.
So I look down from the peak I've built…
and I see no one there.
No rivals.
No equals.
No hands reaching upward.
Just the boy I once was
curled at the bottom of the mountain,
staring up at the ghost of his reflection.
I am Lysar Vayne.
Sinborn of Pride.
And I wear my solitude like a crown of glass,
sharp, glittering, and always ready to bleed me dry.