All Chapters of The Shattered Crown: Chapter 61
- Chapter 70
81 chapters
Chapter 60 – The Bloodied Crown
The dawn that followed was colorless.A sky the shade of steel hung over the palace, and the air tasted of smoke and rain. The fires had finally died, but the scent of ash lingered like memory thick, bitter, and unwilling to fade.Elias stood in the throne room, silent while servants scrubbed soot from the marble floors. Every sound the scrape of brush against stone, the faint drip of water from their buckets felt painfully loud.Then came the knock.It was not the hesitant tap of a messenger. It was deliberate, heavy, as though whoever stood behind the door already owned the place.A guard entered first, bowing low. “Majesty… a rider arrived from the eastern border. Alone.”Elias turned. “And?”The guard swallowed. “He bears something meant for you. Says it comes from your brother.”Elias’s expression didn’t change, but the air in the room seemed to tighten.“Bring it.”The rider entered moments later a gaunt man in travel-stained armor, his cloak dark with rain. He carried no sword,
Chapter 61 – The Road to Rethmar
The council chamber was hollow that morning — sunlight fractured through the stained windows, casting shards of red across the marble floor. Elias sat beneath the black banner of the crown, his eyes tracing the map before him. Thin lines of ink spread across the parchment borders, rivers, towns all bleeding into one another, as though the kingdom itself were trying to disappear.Rethmar lay at the eastern edge, a town forgotten by peace. Once, it had been a trade post; now, its silence was a question no one wanted to answer.“Your scouts have not returned,” Seren said. His tone was clipped, all soldier, no ceremony. “It’s been six days.”“I know,” Elias replied. His voice was low, tired. “They were meant to signal by the third dawn.”Rhys stood by the window, arms folded. His armor caught the light not polished, but functional, marked by use. “If Alaric’s men have moved east, Rethmar would be the first to fall. It’s too close to the pass. Too exposed.”Elias didn’t answer. His fingers
Chapter 62 – Shadows of the Border
The scouts returned at dawn not as riders, but as corpses.They came in a wagon, covered with tarps soaked in rain and blood. The guards at the gate whispered prayers as the horses halted. Their eyes were hollow, their mouths still open as if frozen mid-cry. One of them still clutched a broken seal the mark of Rethmar’s garrison burned black into his palm.Seren was there when the bodies were brought to the courtyard. His face was carved from stone, the kind of stillness that comes only from seeing too much. “Get the healer,” he ordered. “And bring the king.”But Elias was already on his way.He arrived without escort, cloak half fastened, boots still wet from the rain. The soldiers moved aside without a word as he approached the wagon.No one dared speak.Elias knelt beside the nearest corpse. He recognized the boy Calen, the youngest scout he’d appointed himself. Barely eighteen. He remembered the way Calen had saluted, awkwardly, proud just to wear the crest.Now his throat was cut
Chapter 63 – Mara’s Web
The capital never slept anymore. Not since the eastern fires began to glow on the horizon like the reflection of a coming storm. Merchants whispered of rebellion in the border towns, soldiers drank harder, and the streets filled with rumors thick enough to choke on.And Mara she thrived in the noise.In the upper chambers of House Velden, her private study flickered with lamplight and quiet ambition. Scrolls littered the table letters, promises, and debts, all neatly stacked and sealed in wax. Each bore the insignia of a noble family too proud to kneel but too frightened to stand alone.She dipped her quill, eyes glinting like coins. “Tell Lord Kael he will have his iron shipment doubled if he swears his men to my banner by week’s end,” she told her steward, a thin man with eyes that darted like mice.“Yes, my lady. And the others?”“The others,” she said softly, “will come once they realize who actually feeds the king’s army.”The steward hesitated. “Forgive me, but does His Majesty
Chapter 64 – Rhys’s Resolve
The morning sun struggled to pierce the haze that hung over Aurelion. Smoke from the forges and distant fires smeared the sky in gray streaks, painting the city like a wound that refused to heal.Rhys rode through the lower quarter alone, his cloak drawn tight, the weight of his armor hidden beneath it. He had been Elias’s shadow since boyhood his sword when words failed, his shield when loyalty turned thin. But lately, he no longer knew who he was guarding the king from.The people watched him with tired eyes. Children whispered his name as he passed the king’s wolf, they called him. But even wolves, he thought, could lose their scent.He dismounted at the barracks, where soldiers drilled half-heartedly in the courtyard. The rain had turned the dirt to sludge, and their boots made the sound of drowning.“Captain Rhys!” one shouted, saluting. “Orders from the crown?”Rhys’s gaze swept across the men some in dented armor, others barely sober. “Not from the crown,” he said. “From me. Sh
Chapter 65 – Rynna’s Vision
The night the vision came, the moon was a pale shard of bone above the spires of Aurelion, thin and sharp as the edge of prophecy.Rynna sat alone in the tower’s observatory the highest point in the castle, where the wind always whispered of things best left unheard. A dozen candles flickered around her in a circle, their flames bending inward as if listening. The air tasted of metal and rain.She’d tried to suppress the visions for weeks, bury them under silence and duty, but the power within her was stirring again. It was older than her name, older than her fear a curse bound to her bloodline.She placed her hands on the crystal basin before her, its surface rippling though no water stirred. “Show me what lies ahead,” she whispered. “If I am to guide him, I must see.”At first there was nothing just the trembling of light on glass. Then, slowly, the world inside the basin began to twist.Smoke. Fire. Screams.A city, their city, Aurelion engulfed in crimson haze. The great towers me
Chapter 66 – Seren’s Test
The morning broke cold and metallic, as if the sun itself hesitated to rise over Aurelion. Seren stood at the edge of the palace courtyard, watching the guards line up beneath the watchtowers. Their armor glimmered faintly in the gray light, each man rigid, faces unreadable.It was inspection day or so they believed.In truth, Seren had orchestrated something else entirely.For weeks, he had felt something wrong beneath the surface of the palace a pulse too quick, a whisper too rehearsed, movements at night that didn’t belong to the crown’s rhythm. The king trusted his men. Seren did not.He glanced toward the captain of the guard, a broad-shouldered man with a polished halberd and eyes that never quite met his own. Captain Dorn. Loyal on paper. Quietly ambitious in life.“Captain,” Seren said smoothly, “today’s inspection will be… different.”Dorn frowned. “Different, my lord?”“We’ll test their minds instead of their blades.” Seren paced down the line, his hands clasped behind his b
Chapter 67 – The Hidden Cache
Snow whispered across the northern plains, a slow white tide swallowing the road as Elias’s vanguard pressed forward. The wind cut through armor and wool alike, hissing between the pine trunks. Every breath came out silver, every boot crunch echoed like bones cracking under ice.Elias rode at the front, his black cloak snapping behind him, the royal insignia barely visible beneath frost. At his side, Commander Thane a grizzled veteran from Alden’s campaigns kept his hand on the hilt of his sword.“Tracks end here, Your Majesty,” Thane muttered. “The scouts say the hill beyond hides something… unnatural.”Elias glanced toward it. The rise was small, half-buried in snow, flanked by withered trees. Nothing about it seemed unnatural unless you counted the silence.Too still. Too clean.He dismounted. “No torches. No sound. We go on foot.”They climbed the slope slowly, boots sinking into soft snow. Halfway up, one of the soldiers stumbled. His foot had struck something hard beneath the su
Chapter 68 – The King’s Ultimatum
The chamber was still when Elias entered, its air thick with smoke from dying candles and the faint scent of ink. The war map stretched before him like a wound carved into parchment borders inked in red, rivers running like veins through a divided body. Every marker, every sigil stabbed into the map was a reminder that his brother’s shadow stretched too far.He stood over it for a long time, gloved hands pressed against the table, the flicker of torchlight catching in his eyes.Seren entered quietly, scrolls tucked beneath one arm. “The scouts have returned from Rethmar,” he said. “The fires haven’t gone out. Alaric’s men left no survivors.”Elias didn’t look up. “Children?”Seren hesitated. “None found alive.”The silence that followed was sharp. Elias’s jaw tensed; his knuckles whitened. Then he straightened slowly, as if drawing breath through iron. “Then we answer him.”He gestured to the empty chair across the table. “Sit. You’ll draft it with me.”Seren frowned. “A declaration?”
Chapter 69 – The Reply of Fire
The first messenger arrived at dawn or what would have been dawn if not for the choking haze that turned the sky to ash. He stumbled into the courtyard, cloak blackened, eyes wide as though he’d seen hell itself.“Rethmar… the village of Rethmar is gone!” he gasped. “Burned! All of it burned!”Elias froze mid-step. He’d been preparing for council, hands stilling over a scroll of strategy. The words hit harder than steel.“Gone?” he repeated, quiet but sharp.The messenger fell to one knee. “My lord, they set fire to the grain stores, the wells, the homes. There are no survivors.”The silence that followed was thick. Even the guards turned away. The king’s expression didn’t break, but the tremor in his hand betrayed the storm inside him.“Alaric,” Elias whispered. Not as a curse as a fact.Mara was the first to speak. “He’s answered your letter, Majesty. Not in ink… but in blood.” Her tone was cold, almost impressed.Rhys slammed his fist against the table. “That village swore loyalty