Crownless Spire

Born with tanned skin, raven-black hair streaked with lightning-blue, and eyes the color of storms, Cade Wen was once hailed as a future king.

Heir to the Wenblood, a prestigious mageblooded dynasty revered for their mastery of lightning magic, Cade’s birth was a celebrated omen—until it wasn’t. By the age of seven, while his siblings crackled with raw lightning and rose through the ranks as arcane prodigies, Cade’s mana remained inert. Though he formed a mana heart, the ancestral spark—the Stormline—never awakened within him.

Cast aside from succession and political importance, Cade was sent away by his father to the neighboring Ironheart Clan, a noble lineage of knights famed for their discipline, strength, and martial tradition. It was a strategic exile—an attempt to forge a political alliance, cloaked in shame. To the world, he became known as the Prince Without Hope.

But in the crucible of the Ironheart’s brutal training, Cade forged a new path. He honed blade and body, tempered his will, and learned what it meant to earn strength—not inherit it. Under the strict mentorship of the Ironheart patriarch, he discovered that knighthood did not require lightning—it demanded resolve.

Now, at seventeen, Cade enters Virethorn Academy—a towering spire of stone and spell, the most elite training ground for both mages and knights across the six dominions. Here, bloodlines clash, power is everything, and the throne looms distant yet ever-present.

Amongst the chosen elite, Cade is underestimated—a relic of a failed bloodline, a hybrid without a place. But beneath his calm gaze, something stirs. A storm not born of magic, but of defiance.

And in the shadow of the spire, where secrets twist and power crowns the bold, the boy once cast aside may become something far more dangerous than a prince—

A king without mercy