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Ashes of the Hollow King

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Synopsis
“We do not begin with light. We begin with the thing that survives when light fails, ashes.” Long ago, before kingdoms were formed from flame and frost, there was a realm without time, Elarion. It was a world where gods and mortals walked the same ground, where magic flowed like blood through the veins of mountains, rivers, and beasts. In this realm, a king was born not from prophecy, but from betrayal. His name was Vaelen Drayce. The world called him The Hollow King, a tyrant crowned in black flame. He bore the cursed blade Oblivion’s Edge and was the last wielder of Primordial magic, the lost power of creation and destruction. But the story of Vaelen is not one of redemption. It is not about a hero finding his way. This is the story of a villain who was once a man and the war that tried to bury his heart under mountains of ash. Yet, before that could happen, he cast one final curse into the fabric of time. He planted a seed of voidfire within the bloodline of mortals. That seed will one day awaken in Vaelen Drayce.
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Chapter 1 - Chapter One: The Ashen Rebirth

The wind in the Vale of Thorns did not whisper. 

It screamed. 

It raked across jagged cliffs and blackened pine, shrieking like a wounded creature, wailing through the broken ridges where nothing lived willingly. No birds. No deer. No warmth. Even the stars above the vale flickered as if ashamed to look down. 

But in the heart of this forgotten place, a man stood alone. 

Vaelen Drayce. 

A name once celebrated in halls of gold. Now a curse in many tongues. 

Cloaked in weathered leather, a blade rusting at his side, Vaelen watched the dying moon from the edge of a cliff called Vowbreaker's End. Below, the ravine opened like a scar across the world, a void that legend claimed could swallow truth, memory, even time itself. 

He didn't fear it. He understood it. 

He, too, had been swallowed. 

Five years ago, Vaelen had stood at the edge of another cliff, the Crownspire of Liorael, the capital city of a kingdom built on glass promises and golden lies. Five years ago, he'd worn armor blessed by the High Flame Priests, kissed the seal of the throne, and led armies to protect a king who would soon brand him a traitor. 

They had burned his name from scrolls. Executed his loyalists. Erected a statue of the man who framed him. 

And then they forgot him. 

But the wind in the Vale had not. 

It remembered. 

________________________________________ 

Beneath his cloak, Vaelen held a relic wrapped in torn silk—a thin shard of obsidian etched with crimson runes. Faintly, it pulsed with heat, like a heartbeat buried in coal. This was no trinket. This was what remained of the Nightbrand Sigil—a key to powers forbidden before the First Flame War. Magic not of the sun but of the void. 

The old Vaelen would've feared it. 

The man who had bled for his king, who believed in oaths and honor, who spared his enemies when mercy meant weakness—that boy had died in the ash. 

What remained now was sharper. Quieter. Hungrier. 

He wasn't here to be a savior. 

He was here to end things. 

________________________________________ 

The voice came on the wind. 

"You shouldn't be here, Drayce." 

Vaelen didn't flinch. He recognized the tone—dry, amused, dangerous. A ghost from his past. 

Out of the trees stepped a woman clad in deep green, blades at each hip, hair coiled in a crown of thorns. Serenya Kael—once his sparring partner in the Royal Guard, once his friend. Now an agent of the kingdom that betrayed him. 

He turned slowly, raising the obsidian shard. 

"They sent you to kill me, or talk me down?" he asked, his voice rough from weeks of silence. 

She smiled. "Does it matter?" 

He let silence settle again, studying her. He had once trusted Serenya with his life. Now, even her gaze felt like a dagger aimed at his throat. 

"You found the sigil," she said at last, nodding to the relic. "Do you even know what it unlocks?" 

"Power," he replied. 

"Madness." 

He shrugged. "Same thing." 

________________________________________ 

Serenya stepped closer. "There's a bounty on your head in four nations. They think you're planning to raise the Vale. Build an army of monsters." 

Vaelen didn't answer. 

"I told them you'd rot in exile. That your fire had died." 

Still, he said nothing. 

"And yet here you are," she whispered. "In the ruins of the first war, carrying cursed relics and staring at the edge like a man waiting for permission to fall." 

He looked at her. 

"No," he said quietly. "I already fell." 

________________________________________ 

Behind them, the sky split with thunder. 

Dark clouds gathered over the cliffs, black with violet veins. The sigil in Vaelen's hands began to glow brighter, its heartbeat quickening. The wind shifted—not natural now, but warped. It tasted of old fire, metal, and magic. 

Serenya stiffened. "You awakened something." 

"I lit a match." 

"There's a reason we buried that war, Vaelen." 

"You buried the truth. You buried me." 

His voice cracked like ice breaking. 

Serenya drew her twin blades. "You think you're the only one who lost something? The world moved on. It healed. So, Don't open this door." 

Vaelen looked beyond her, toward the ravine. Toward the dead sun carved in the rock face—a symbol older than any kingdom, any god. 

"I'm not opening the door," he whispered. 

"I am the door." 

________________________________________ 

The earth shook. 

From the depths of the chasm, something ancient stirred—a sound like stone grinding on bone, a hum like voices whispering in reverse. Black mist slithered up the cliffside. Trees bent away. The very stars dimmed. 

Serenya's eyes widened. "What did you do, Vaelen?" 

He closed his hand around the sigil. 

"Reclaimed my name." 

________________________________________ 

Flashback – Five Years Ago 

Sunlight streamed into the Hall of Flame in Liorael. Vaelen stood beside King Edrion IV, dressed in the ceremonial red and gold of a Flamewarden Knight. The crowd chanted his name. The king placed a crown of fireleaf on his head. 

"You've saved the realm from the Ashborn," the king said, voice booming. "You are the kingdom's chosen blade." 

Later that night, Vaelen stood in the royal chamber, blood on his hands. A dagger lay at his feet. A corpse lay behind him. 

Framed. 

Too fast. 

Too perfect. 

And when the guards stormed in—Serenya among them—they did not see the real killer, the noble who fled through the side door. They saw Vaelen. 

And the world burned around him. 

________________________________________ 

Present 

The storm in the Vale grew. 

Serenya circled him, blades ready. "You can't survive this path, Vaelen. This isn't justice; it's suicide." 

He smiled, just a little. 

"That's what they said the first time." 

The shard in his hand melted into flame, vanishing into his skin. His eyes flared—not golden like the Flameborn, but obsidian streaked with crimson. 

The old magic had returned. 

And it had chosen him. 

________________________________________ 

Far below, in the ruins of Old Tenebral, stones cracked. A bell tolled—one not touched in a hundred years. Creatures stirred in the dark. Forgotten spirits reached toward the sky. Ash fell like snow. 

And the world felt it. 

The first breath of a war that had not yet begun. 

________________________________________ 

In Liorael... 

High above the city, in the Tower of Saints, the Seer of the Dawnblood Throne collapsed. 

"The flame has been tainted," she gasped, eyes bleeding. 

"Who?" the priest beside her demanded. 

"A shadow that once wore light." 

She looked east, toward the Vale. 

"Vaelen Drayce walks again." 

________________________________________ 

In the darkness, away from prying eyes…. 

Vaelen stood alone once more, overlooking the world that condemned him. 

He didn't hate them. 

He pitied them. 

Because they had mistaken silence for peace. 

And now the silence was ending.