All Chapters of Trash to Throne: Chapter 271
- Chapter 280
292 chapters
CHAPTER 264 — WHEN THE FLAME REMEMBERS
“Memory is a double-edged resurrection.”Emily’s body trembled in Adrian’s arms. Not from fear. From the weight of two selves merging light and fire, innocence and wrath, life and death.He felt it against his chest: the irregular heartbeat trying to steady itself, like two rhythms struggling to sync.Her wings flickered wildly. Gold.Then crimson. Then both. Adrian whispered against her hair: “Easy… I’ve got you.”Emily sucked in a sharp breath, her fingers twisting into his coat as if anchoring herself to the world. “Adrian…”Her voice layered one soft, one deeper, echoing beneath it. “…I remember everything.”He held her tighter. “Then I’m not going anywhere.”The Herald stood several paces away, knuckles white around his staff, gaze locked on Emily with a mixture of awe and terror. Lyra stepped beside him, speaking under her breath. “She doesn’t feel like Emily anymore.”“She is,” the Herald murmured. “But she is also what she became in the final collapse.”“And what exactly was th
CHAPTER 265 — THE GIRL WHO BURNED THE WORLD
“Nothing haunts harder than the version of yourself you needed to survive.”The ground beneath Adrian and Emily cracked like thin glass under a storm. The old world this memory-wound was alive again, burning with the fury Emily had once unleashed.Firestorms chased each other in the sky. Broken mountains floated like shattered teeth. And standing before them: Her.The version of Emily who had chosen destruction to save him. Golden flames crowned her like a war halo, streaked with streaks of crimson unrestrained, feral, magnificent.Her eyes were molten gold with no pupils, no softness. Only purpose. Emily swallowed hard. “That’s… me.”“No,” the flame-Emily snapped, voice like a burning wind.“I am what you were too afraid to become.”Adrian stepped in front of the Emily he held. Lightning crawled over his arms. “Back off.”The flame-Emily tilted her head, studying him like prey. “Protecting her again,” she mused. “You never learn.”Emily placed a trembling hand on Adrian’s shoulder. “
CHAPTER 266 — THE ONE THAT WATCHED THE FLAMES
“Some things do not awaken. They simply wait for the world to remember them.”The horizon rippled not like heat, not like magic, but like the world itself was trying to pull away from something walking inside it.Adrian stepped in front of Emily instantly, lightning sparking from his palms. “Emily… stay behind me.”Her newly unified fire dimmed in shock. “Adrian… that’s not a god.”He swallowed. “Yeah. I know.”The silhouette emerging was enormous humanoid, but wrong. Too tall. Too still. Its limbs bent at angles that didn’t match its shape, like it had learned recently how to mimic a human form. And its face, No. It had no face.Just shifting plates of polished stone, sliding over each other like tectonic plates rearranging themselves into meaning.A presence older than the Abyss. Older than the First Storm. Older than memory. It paused five steps away. Not from fear. But as if considering them. Studying them. Adrian’s spine tightened. “Emily… if this gets bad”“I’m not leaving you,”
CHAPTER 267 — THE FIRE BEFORE MEMORY
“Memory is a mercy. Forgetting is a weapon.”Emily stared at the shimmering tear in reality. It pulsed like a heartbeat hers, yet not hers. It called her by a name she didn’t know anymore. Adrian tightened his arm around her. “Emily… don’t go near that thing.”“I’m not,” she whispered.But she didn’t move away, either. Flames coiled under her skin, reacting to the presence beyond the tear a heat that felt familiar, like something from a dream she once had that wasn’t really a dream.Adrian watched her carefully. “What did that thing mean? That you burned a world?”“I don’t know,” she said.But her voice trembled like she feared the answer. It happened suddenly. A surge of heat rolled off her chest not from fear, but from something waking.The world blurred, She clutched her head. “Emily?” Adrian grabbed her shoulders. “Emily, stay with me”“I’m..I’m remembering something”“Then stop,” he urged, panicked. “You don’t have to”“No. It’s not a choice. It’s coming on its own.”The heat spi
CHAPTER 268 — THE WORLD THAT CALLED HER BY ANOTHER NAME
“A name is not who you are. It is who someone once needed you to be.”The crack in reality stretched open with a soft, shivering sound like fabric ripping underwater. Emily stepped closer, her fingers tightening around Adrian’s.The air around them hummed, vibrating with a strange frequency that made her bones ache. The heat inside her chest flared again, answering the call of the rift with unwanted familiarity.Adrian squeezed her hand. “You don’t go in alone.”“I know,” she whispered.But her gaze stayed fixed on the widening tear because something inside it was whispering. Her name. Except…not Emily.“Astra.”The voice was distant, echoing across lifetimes. Adrian stiffened. “What did it say?”Emily swallowed. “It called me… Astra.”The name hit her like a blade made of memory. Astra. She didn’t know why it fit. Didn’t know why hearing it made her heart clench like she’d been waiting for someone to say it for centuries.Adrian stepped in front of her slightly, shielding her from th
CHAPTER 269 — THE STAR OF ENDINGS
“Memory is not a thing you lose. It is a thing that hides until you’re strong enough to carry it.”The massive being of stone and pale fire took a single step forward and the molten-cracked ground trembled beneath its weight.Adrian’s arm instinctively rose in front of Emily. But the creature did something neither of them expected. It knelt. Its plated knees struck the glassy ground with a booming thud. Its head bowed.And in a voice that sounded like an earthquake learning to whisper, it said: “Forgive me, Astra.”Emily froze. The world froze. Adrian’s breath caught because the creature wasn’t threatening. It was… grieving.Emily stepped out from behind Adrian before she realized she’d moved. “Why are you bowing?” she whispered. The creature lifted its gaze those golden magma-filled eyes softening. “Because I failed you.”Heat pulsed in Emily’s chest that same buried warmth that had awakened inside her ever since the collapse of the realms. As the creature spoke, images flickered be
CHAPTER 270 — THE RIFT THAT KNOWS HER NAME
“Memory is a doorway. But some doors open both ways.”Emily’s body lifted higher, suspended by nothing but sound a thousand whispering voices curling around her like invisible chains.Adrian’s lightning lashed upward instinctively, but the bolts exploded before they could reach her, swallowed by the swirling dark. “EMILY!”Her eyes were wide unfocused glowing faintly with white fire. Not consciously. Not willingly. The Rift wasn’t dragging her. It was remembering her. And with every memory it regained, its pull strengthened.The creature of molten stone and pale fire bellowed: “Astra, close your mind!DO NOT LET IT IN!”Emily screamed a raw, piercing sound that tore the world beneath them. But it wasn’t a scream of pain. It was a scream of recognition.In the void around her, images flickered. Not her life with Adrian. Not her childhood. Not her sacrifices. These memories were older. Ancient. She saw herself made of light not flesh a star in human form.She saw worlds kneeling in wors
CHAPTER 271 — THE STAR-KILLER TAKES ITS FIRST BREATH
“A weapon is not born. It is remembered.”Emily felt the world tilt. The thing standing before her the shape pulled from the Rift wasn’t a monster. It wasn’t a shadow. It wasn’t even an enemy. It was a decision given form.Lean. Tall. Human-shaped but wrong. Its edges flickered like a broken screen. Its skin shimmered between shadow and static. Its eyes… empty. Holes in reality.But when they locked onto Emily they knew her. Adrian felt her entire body tense. “Emily?”Her breath hitched. “It’s… familiar.”She swallowed hard. “It remembers me.”The Rift’s deep chorus rolled across the air: “WE HAVE SHAPED A VESSEL FROM WHAT YOU TOOK.”“A MEMORY OF YOUR OPPOSITE.”“THE STAR-KILLER.”The creature of molten stone beside them recoiled. “No… No, this should be impossible.”Adrian turned sharply. “What is it? Tell me.”The creature’s magma-flames dimmed. “It is the only being that ever matched Astra.”“A weapon crafted to extinguish starfire itself.”“A being she unmade millions of cycles ag
CHAPTER 272 — EMILY GOES TO WAR
“When light fears the dark, it flickers. When the dark fears the light, it hides. But when a heart fears losing one soul it burns.”Adrian’s breath left him in a sharp, sickening gasp. Emily watched it, watched the air leave his body, watched his eyes widen, watched his lightning collapse inward like a dying star.The Star-Killer’s hand was buried through his chest clean, silent, precise. No blood spilled. It wasn’t a wound. It was erasure. A deletion of existence. “NO NO, NO ADRIAN!”Emily lunged forward but the molten creature grabbed her arm. “FOOL! If you touch him now”“I DON’T CARE!”She ripped herself free with a flare of fire that burned molten armor, sprinting toward Adrian just as the Star-Killer withdrew its hand.Adrian collapsed to his knees eyes unfocused, lightning flickering weakly around him, unstable arcs snapping and fading, his aura tearing apart. His voice was faint. Barely there. “Em…?”Emily caught him before he hit the ground fully, her arms wrapping around him
CHAPTER 273 — THE SILENT MOUNTAIN, WHERE LYRA WAITS
“Some places do not echo. They listen.”The land changed as Emily walked. With every step she took carrying Adrian, the living world seemed to pull away grass thinning into ash-gray stone, wind losing its warmth, colors draining until only muted tones remained.The sky above the distant mountains was unnaturally still, clouds frozen as if painted there by a hand that had forgotten how to move.Adrian’s weight was light in her arms. Too light. His lightning no longer sparked. It slept coiled deep, barely breathing. “Stay with me,” Emily whispered, more command than prayer. “We’re almost there.”The molten guardian walked ahead of her, each step deliberate. “This mountain does not welcome visitors,” it warned. “It tolerates necessity.”Emily didn’t slow. “Then it’ll have to tolerate me.”The path began to rise sharply, stone steps forming beneath her feet where none should exist. Ancient. Worn. As if countless others had climbed them long ago hoping, failing, vanishing.At the summit, t