Velmira burned.
Not with fire, but with memory.
The battle was over. The army of the Deadbound lay in broken heaps across the blood-slick stones. The Soulbrands had shattered. The wyvern's carcass smoldered on the cathedral's spire. But no cheer rose. No trumpet sounded.
Victory, this time, felt too much like grief.
Kael sat alone in the war chamber beneath the citadel. Before him, a map of the realm lay pinned with ash-dusted markers—many of them now irrelevant. Cities lost. Kingdoms fallen. Lines drawn in ink that could no longer hold back shadow.
He stared at the vacant throne at the far end of the chamber—the Ashen Throne, once carved from dragonbone and moonstone. Now cracked. Crumbling. Like the realm it ruled.
"Kael," Elira said gently as she entered. "The Council is waiting."
Kael didn't move. "Let them wait."
Elira came to his side, her voice quiet but unrelenting. "The people need a king."
He finally looked up.
"I am not a king."
"But you carry the Crown."
"No," Kael said, rising. "I changed it. I shattered its curse. I will not be what it tried to make me."
Elira stepped closer. "Then be better. Rule not because the throne demands it—but because the people deserve it."
The Council of Embers
The hall was full.
Nobles, mages, exiles, commanders. Survivors from across the fractured lands had come, drawn by rumors of the broken Crown and the man who'd faced the death-sorcerer and lived.
Kael stood before them, not in armor, but in travel-worn black.
A hush fell as he raised his hand.
"No oaths," he said. "No fanfare."
He dropped something heavy onto the table—the remains of the Shadow Crown, now reforged into a circlet of tempered steel and starlight, with no magic, no binding, no power but what others gave it.
"I don't want your loyalty," Kael said. "I want your honesty. Your strength. Your fire."
Someone scoffed from the crowd. "You speak like a rebel, not a ruler."
Kael smiled. "Then perhaps it's time rulers started listening like rebels."
The Last Ember Tree
Later that night, Kael and Elira walked the garden ruins where the last Ember Tree still stood—its branches scorched, but clinging to one single bloom.
"I dreamed of this place when I was a child," Kael murmured. "Before the war. Before Theren."
Elira nodded. "And now?"
"Now I dream less. But I see more."
He touched the bloom gently.
"Do you think it's over?" Elira asked.
Kael didn't answer immediately. The wind shifted, and far off, he thought he heard wings—not dead ones. But something older. Wiser.
"No," he said at last. "The war is over. But the reckoning… the reckoning has just begun."
Far Away… In the North
A candle flickered in a hidden library deep beneath the ruins of Sorathal.
A woman with silver eyes turned the final page of a forbidden tome and smiled.
"The Crown is broken," she whispered. "Good."
She placed the book on a stack beside her—each bound in flesh, inked in blood, sealed with screams.
"It was only ever the first lock."
Behind her, an ancient door began to open.
And something inside… breathed.