All Chapters of Beneath the Ashes, He Rose: Chapter 121
- Chapter 130
190 chapters
Chapter 121: White Reign
The white roses were in charge.The giant thorn cage that had ensnared Washington, D.C., did not attack or flee over the Potomac. All it did was lose its will. The immobilized city was covered in an endless, quiet snowfall as the black roses wilted and their petals curled into dry, ash-like flakes. The savage thorns grew softer before falling apart. The dense, throbbing vines dried out and turned into brittle, gray scaffolding that stood as a menacing reminder of the horror that had once existed. The Garden descended into a sort of botanical senescence without its Gardener and its anticipated successors.True life thrived on the island of New Harrington.Tatiana did not hold a throne. Under a canopy of white roses that had grown over a new, larger hut Alexander had constructed, she reigned from a plain chair made of willow branches. He had come back from essence, not from the dead. She had woken up the morning after the rift had closed to find him next to her in their bed of linen and
Chapter 122: Seed Voice
No amount of shaking or yelling could break Phoenix's deep, unnatural sleep as she slept for eighteen hours. He was a ship moored in gloomy waters, but his pulse was steady and his breathing was even. He was different when he eventually woke up.He didn't do anything. His once-bright amber eyes were now dull and filled with a sort of passive bewilderment. He would follow instructions to eat and exercise, but his innocent curiosity had vanished. A horrible, silent void took its place. Furthermore, it seemed as though his tongue had forgotten its function because when he attempted to talk, only harsh, guttural sounds came out.As they watched him sit still on the cabin floor, Tatiana whispered, "The petal," in a hollow voice. It resides within him. sprouting.Alexander's expression was one of restrained rage. "We removed it.""How? We don't have any imaging or surgery."This is ours." Alexander strolled over to the white rose bower's edge. He did not select a flower. He looked at a stem
Chapter 123: Tattoo Plague
Across the wounded terrain, the Black Rose Communion spread like a silent heartbeat.on quiet, scared voices, folks on Washington's abandoned streets compared the tattoos. Everybody had the same appearance: complex, thorny, throbbing over the heart with a faint, syncopated rhythm that seemed to slow or quicken without any apparent pattern. It was painless. A mental itch, a sense of being watched from within, itched.It was the same on the island. The mark was there all the time. Unconsciously, Tatiana felt the elevated lines and touched it. With his palm covering the black rose on his chest as though to protect his heart, Alexander would catch himself gazing at his reflection in the water.The youngsters were most oddly impacted. Phoenix was drawn to calm, gloomy locations despite not having the seed-voice. Hours would pass while Ash traced his tattoo, his void-grey eyes far away. Mira dreamed that "the thorny heart" was after her.The pulses then started to match.It began during a c
Chapter 124: Dust Reborn
On the white sand, two Alexanders stood: one of flesh, the other of memory and will. The healed and the damaged, the present and the past, were mirror pictures divided by experience. However, they maintained the same steadfast devotion when they gazed at Tatiana.Alexander's ghost didn't wait for inquiries. He took action.He touched the black rose tattoo on his chest with his blazing white rose hand. It hissed like water on a hot stone, yet there was no cry. Under the white fire, the tattoo's inky thorns smoked and then started to fade, dissolving as though they had been burned away by intense sunlight. The skin was clear and unblemished where they disappeared.He had cleansed himself.Then he looked across at Tatiana. She comprehended. The phoenix-and-thorn mark over her heart was visible when she stood erect. He touched it with his hand. It was a purifying cold, not a blazing fire. She sensed the black rose's intrusive, itchy presence, the link to the hive-mind, and Benjamin's will
Chapter 125: Seed Island
In Tatiana's palm, the seed pulsed slowly and realistically. A little potential heart. Alexander was standing next to her, his pain palpable, his eyes focused on the dead city where their children had disappeared."We pursue them," he added in a gravelly voice. "We rip apart that decaying forest, root by root.""And push them back?" With her gaze fixed on the seed, Tatiana inquired. "Alexander, they made a decision. Notes were left by them. They weren't taken hostage. The silence we offered them was more eerie than the tune they were familiar with, so they ventured into the forest. At last, she turned to face him, the inner brilliance of the seed reflected in her eyes. "Do we turn into the despots, shaping them to fit our preferences?"Desperately, he said, "They are children." "They have no idea what they have selected!""Mira wasn't a kid when she kissed you. The Phoenix that used Benjamin's voice wasn't a youngster. With a calculated weight to each word, she stated, "The Ash who sa
Chapter 126: Fruit Reset
The fruit's flavor turned into a combination of frozen fog and jet fuel.Through a tunnel of shrieking light and shattered memory, Tatiana's consciousness was thrown backward rather than forward. The warmth of the crib, the chill of the river, the hug of the warehouse, and the prick of the thorn were all crammed into a single atom of experience that burst into the past.With her heels digging into the wet tarmac, she stumbled.The thunderous, dying wail of turbofan engines was the first sound to attack her. The stench, frigid jet smoke, and dense fog near the river at the private airport outside of Washington, D.C. The sensation of a sharp wind at midnight slicing through her very thin coat. She wasn't on the island. She was not dressed in linen. She had goosebumps and was wearing a black cocktail dress with her arms bare. She had previously been here. Five minutes ago and a lifetime later.Chapter 1.Her head jerked up. Alexander Harrington was there, just coming down the matte-black
Chapter 127: Memory Queen
Time folded in on itself. The script did not include this. Benjamin's initial actions, such as the leaked photo, the sniper, and the psychological war, were always covert and deceptive. Not a straight-up, on-tarmac altercation. More than the drone's image had been altered by the fruit's reset; Benjamin had been drawn onto the stage for the opening act.Alexander responded like a panther in a corner. He pushed Tatiana behind him, positioning himself between her and the rifle, and reached beneath his coat for a weapon that wasn't there yet; he wouldn't be equipped until Grayson brought the box.“Benjamin,” Alexander said, his voice dropping into a calm, dangerous register Tatiana remembered from a hundred standoffs. "A personal salutation. I feel flattered.Benjamin's smile never reached his ice-blue eyes as he added, "I had to welcome you home when I heard my dear, departed brother-in-law was descending from the heavens." The firearm remained steady. His eyes darted to Tatiana, looking
Chapter 128: Early Ambush
Benjamin's weapon was not the source of the gunfire.From the direction of the control tower came a heavier, sharper report, that of a sniper rifle. A round ripped through the darkness and hit the pavement an inch from Benjamin's left foot, sparking off the tarmac, just before he could fire. A warning shot. Grayson.Benjamin recoiled, the bullet wailing off into the fog as his shot went wide. His last remaining nerve was broken when Tatiana's claim that he was in a sniper's crosshairs was confirmed.Alexander moved in that instant of shocked imbalance. He was a flurry of restrained aggression. He refrained from pursuing the gun. Leaping forward, he brutally precisely chopped Benjamin's wrist with his fist. There was a horrible pop as a bone snapped. The revolver clattered to the floor as Benjamin let out a cry.Alexander skillfully swept it up and pressed the muzzle beneath Benjamin's jaw, catching it before it bounced. It took less than two seconds to complete the swap."The game has
Chapter 129: Silver Sacrifice
Her bones lightened, her power gone, and Alexander caught her. He sank to the cold tarmac, cradling Tatiana’s rapidly aging form in his arms. The lively lady who had kissed him with the weight of eternity turned into a living testament to the passage of time, and he watched helplessly. Her skin like translucent parchment over delicate bones, and her silver hair was as fine as spider silk. She had no weight.But her eyes. Her phoenix-green eyes, though clouded at the edges, still burned with the same fierce intelligence. Trapped in a crumbling vessel, she was within.Her voice sounded like dry leaves as she rasped, "The phone..." Weakly, she pointed to the gadget that had slipped out of her hand.Alexander picked it up. The screen was still open to a recording app. "What? What are you in need of?“Not record… play,” she breathed. Isabella's upload. The recollectionsHe didn’t understand, but he fumbled with the futuristic interface. He discovered a file with the simple label "LEGACY."
Chapter 130: Infant Loop
The only sound in the universe was the baby's wail. The lingering sounds of gunfire and the computerized alarms of financial collapse shrieking from Benjamin's phone pierced the fog. Feeling the foundations of his reality disintegrate, Alexander Harrington, the Phantom, the avenger, crouched on the tarmac, clutching a swaddled newborn made of crystallized moonlight and petals.His Tatiana was this. She had the green eyes. Even while she was crying, the little jaw's resolute set belonged to her. She was a blank slate, though. a restart. A variant.The petal-swaddle was warm and smelled strongly of her, the clean, essential scent of her spirit rather than the perfume of the woman in the cocktail dress. It was a fragrance that reached his soul directly, bypassing memory.He has a father. He served as a guardian. His own heart was crying for milk, and he was a man with the cosmic reset button in his hand.With his sniper rifle slung and a composed expression that belied his disbelief, Gra