All Chapters of Beneath the Ashes, He Rose: Chapter 161
- Chapter 170
190 chapters
Chapter 161: Root Door
The stone stairway didn’t descend into a dungeon or a high-tech lair. It descended about twenty stairs before coming to a sudden stop at another door. This one had a brass knocker shaped like a smiling sun and was painted a cheery, suburban sage green. Leading the way, Alexander hesitated on the final step while Tatiana trailed closely behind, holding onto Mira. He gazed back at her, his demeanor a mask of great uncertainty. This wasn’t the “engine room.” This was a basement door. He cranked the simple knob and pushed with a shrug that was more tense than casual. Bright, bright, golden light flooded out, accompanied with the unmistakable, commonplace sounds of a Wednesday evening: the buzz of a dishwasher, the faint murmur of a television, the perfume of lemon cleaner and roasted chicken. They passed through, not into darkness, but into the back hallway of a perfectly regular, two-story colonial house. The carpet is beige. Family photographs on the wall. Crayons were falling out o
Chapter 162: Mat Petal
On the dull, domestic rug, the black petal was an obscenity. It was a drop of ink on a marriage certificate, a crack in the foundation of the fictitious existence they’d just witnessed. It was also, undeniably, a message. Tatiana stared at it, the infant Mira a warm, sleepy weight against her shoulder. The tears on her face had dried, leaving tight, salty trails. The grief for the illusory normalcy was being rapidly torched by a cold, familiar wrath. This was Benjamin’s signature. His calling card. He had been here. He had planted this exquisite torture chamber, this diorama of their vulnerability, and he had left a petal to sign his work. Shaking the sand off the mat, Alexander knelt and scooped it up. The black petal clung obstinately as he grasped it by its corners. "He's making fun of us," he stated in a flat tone. "Proving he controls the game after showing us the prize." “He doesn’t control it,” Tatiana continued, her voice increasing strength. With her fingers grazing the pe
Chapter 163: Winking Ghost
The green door opened to the same cozy hallway. The scents of lemon and chicken were fainter now, replaced by the serene stillness of a house settling for the night. A nightlight fashioned like a star projected a gentle glow from a wall socket. Sweater-Tatiana was waiting, her arms crossed, worry etching lines across her mouth. Her stance sagged with relief when she saw them with her daughter, then tightened once more with mistrust. “Mira! We were terrified of you! You can’t just run off like that.” “I saw the baby,” Mira remarked matter-of-factly, as if that answered everything. She yawned loudly, rubbing her eyes with little fists. Behind his wife, Khaki-Alexander emerged, his guarded demeanor hardly relaxing at the sight of his restored child. He cast a long, probing glance at the adults drenched from the river. “Where did she go?” "Just exploring," River-Alexander remarked in a cautiously even voice. He held out the artwork. “She left this.” Khaki-Alexander took it, his brow
Chapter 164: Wax Crown
The whisper faded, leaving only the sound of the river and their own ragged breathing. A child who lived in two worlds had a sovereign claim to the black wax crown that rested on the sand. As Tatiana approached it, the sobbing baby began to quiet down in her arms. She studied the small, flawless object while on her knees. With a single, smooth, gem-like protrusion in the front and tiny spikes that resembled thorns, it was exquisitely detailed. It was a crown appropriate for a storybook princess, sculpted in a material meant for sealing doom. She couldn’t leave it here. It was a node, a beacon. A portion of the story that had followed them out of the green door. Without touching it with her naked flesh, she used the edge of her garment to carefully scoop it up. Now that it was firm and rather weighty for its size, it was cool. She slid it inside her pocket. It was a burden that tugged at reality, like carrying a pilfered chess piece. Alexander's face was serious as he observed her.
Chapter 165: Blue Burn
The skin of the fruit gave apart with a crisp, pleasant crack, like shattering a little bone. The flavor that invaded her mouth was not sweet. It was intensely focused. The essence of time itself, dusty, dry, with a harsh, tannic bite like over-steeped tea, followed by a cloying, syrupy aftertaste of nostalgia and regret. She’d expected power. A surge of vitality, of recollection, of phoenix fire. What she got was time. It had a fast-acting, drug-like effect on her body. In her stomach, a scorching fire blossomed and spread outward, transforming rather than burning. She felt it in her bones first, a deep, aching shift, a settling. Her skin prickled, tightening over suddenly more defined musculature. Stress and river wind had carved delicate lines at the corners of her eyes, which smoothed out before reappearing as deeper, more enduring creases of experience. Her hair, knotted and moist, seemed to grow thicker, gaining a few strategic strands of silver at her temples. She let out a
Chapter 166: Mirror Wings
The phantom weight was not phantom for long.Back in the rowboat, with Alexander staring at her as if she’d grown a second head, Tatiana felt the sensation solidify. It began as a searing heat between her shoulder blades, a twin sun burning under her skin. It was not agony, but an awful fullness, a pressure seeking release.“Tatiana, your back…” Alexander muttered, his voice filled with astonishment and horror.She sensed it was taking place. Through the fabric of her coat, two distinct, hot spikes pushed against the material. There was a sound like tearing silk, but it was the sound of reality itself straining. From the region between her shoulders, right below her neck, two gigantic figures burst.They were not made of flesh and blood, but of living flame and crystallized light. Feathers of gold and scarlet and deepest orange materialized one after another, unfurling with a gentle, whispering roar. Each feather was edged with dying ember, spitting sparks that landed into the boat’s
Chapter 167: Stop Counting
Her comments hovered in the air, a challenge to the underlying architecture of their misery. Stop counting. Speaking with the weight of a wise person who had experienced the issue a hundred times, it seemed like a child's naive solution to an intractable situation. Alexander was the first to move. He surged forward toward his "go-bag" from a life he couldn't recall, a little, waterproof bag hidden beneath the bow seat, rather than toward Mira. He unzipped it with feverish hands and brought out a thick, wool jumper. With his disbelief and the stiffness of a father's concern at odds, he gave it to his teenage daughter. “Here. Put this on. Mira-14 accepted it without a word, slipping the large jumper on over her head. It swamped her, the sleeves dangling past her fingertips, but it promised modesty and a touch of normalcy. She hugged it around herself, as if cold. “How?” Tatiana asked, her flaming wings still stretched, their light shimmering over the lake. The heat pouring off them w
Chapter 168: Chapter Fruit
On the dark balcony, the CHAPTER 1 fruit shone like a tiny sun, its parchment-colored skin highlighting the changing, spectral lettering that appeared to writhe just below the surface. The narrative loop was given physical shape, the story was given flesh, and it hung from a tree like knowledge that was prohibited. It was an abomination. Tatiana peered at it, the heat of her recently-retracted wings still a ghostly echo in her veins. It would be the ultimate surrender to eat that. To willingly re-ingest the first poison, to experience the first betrayal, the first loss, with full understanding of all the suffering that would follow. It would be torment of the most exquisite kind. A craziness. “No,” she responded, the word flat and definitive, reverberating in the antiseptic, opulent kitchen. She took a step back, putting herself between the balcony doors and her family. “We don’t go back to the beginning. We go onward. Or we remain motionless. But we do not rewind.” Alexander moved
Chapter 169: Scar Map
They followed the pouring, bright channel. It led them out of the tower, via a service corridor that shouldn’t have existed, a stark, concrete path that smelled of damp and industrial cleaner, entirely at odds with the penthouse’s splendor. The luminous beads lingered in the air, an otherworldly breadcrumb trail through the bowels of the metropolis. Instead of emerging onto a street, they found themselves in a large, deserted parking garage beneath what appeared to be a government building, complete with echoing space and brutalist concrete pillars. The track went to a massive, unmarked steel door marked MAINTENANCE. Alexander kicked it open. Beyond was a tunnel, old and brick-lined, with dripping pipes overhead. Tatiana's scar-map, which was still dripping its guiding fluid, was the only source of illumination as they strolled for what seemed like miles. Weary after her temporal adventure, baby Mira dozed off in Alexander's arms. With the empty aching in her back serving as a conti
Chapter 170: Butterfly Key
The vault was silent again, the butterflies gone, absorbed into Tatiana’s scars. The empty cylinder on the pedestal appeared to mock them. They had identified the source, and it was a void. Benjamin’s ultimate joke: the treasure was the revelation that there was no treasure. However, a key was provided by the butterflies. Tatiana closed her eyes and stood still. She could feel it, not a real item, but a knowing imprinted where the wings had been. The map on her back was no longer a chart to a place. It was a locking mechanism diagram. Furthermore, the lock was not in a skyscraper, a warehouse, or the Pentagon. It was in her. “Memory is the prison,” she murmured, opening her eyes. They were clear, concentrated. “He’s right. But he thinks that implies we should forget. Delete. Start anew with a blank slate, like that CHAPTER 1 apple offered.” She turned to face Alexander and the infant he was holding. But remembering is crucial. It’s… integrating. The lock is in the heart. Not to ke