Crown of withered thorns

Cyrian's pov

The iron glowed with the color of a dying star, and the heat coming off it should have made me flinch. It didn’t. I stared straight ahead at the Stone of Penitence, my wrists raw from the shackles, while the laughter of the court hissed in my ears like a pit of vipers.

"Look at him," Thalric sneered, his voice dripping with a sickly, performative pity. He stepped closer, the branding iron trembling slightly in his grip. Not from fear, but from the sheer adrenaline of finally breaking me. "The Great Disgrace. The stain on the bloodline. Are you ready to wear your true name, little brother?"

I looked at him. Truly looked at him. To the crowd, I was just a broken seventeen-year-old. But inside, the soul of the Thousand-Year Warden had just slammed into this vessel like a falling moon. The boy who had been weeping five seconds ago was gone. In his place was a man who had seen empires burn to ash.

"You talk too much, Thalric," I said. My voice was sandpaper and ice.

The crowd went dead silent. The mocking nobles leaned forward, their silks rustling. Thalric blinked, his face flushing a deep, ugly purple.

"What did you just say to me?"

"I said," I leaned back against the stone, the chains rattling with a sharp, rhythmic clink, "that if you’re going to burn me, do it. Or are you waiting for your mother to come hold your hand?"

"You bastard!" Thalric roared. He didn't wait. He lunged, thrusting the white-hot 'Crest of the Outcast' toward my bare chest.

The heat hit my skin. I felt the first layer of dermis begin to sizzle. Under normal circumstances, I would have screamed until my lungs burst. Instead, I closed my eyes and reached into the void of my memory, pulling out a forbidden technique—the Abyssal Marrow Siphon.

Drain it, I commanded my blood. Take it all.

The searing pain didn't radiate outward; I forced it inward. I grabbed the thermal energy of the brand and shoved it directly into my bone marrow. It was like drinking liquid fire. My cultivation base, which had been a stagnant, frozen pond for years, suddenly cracked.

CRACK.

The sound echoed in my soul. The heat was no longer an injury; it was fuel.

"Why isn't he screaming?" a woman in the front row whispered, her voice trembling. "Thalric, why isn't he crying out?"

Thalric’s knuckles were white. He was leaning his entire weight into the iron, pressing it into my pectoral muscle. "Scream, damn you! Break!"

I opened my eyes. I wasn't in pain. I felt alive. The stagnant energy in my limbs was churning, spinning into a vortex.

"Is that all the heat you can manage?" I asked. I actually chuckled. It was a dark, hollow sound that made the nearest guards step back. "I've felt warmer baths in the dead of winter."

"Shut up! Shut up!" Thalric pressed harder.

"You’re embarrassing yourself, Thalric," I said, my voice rising so the entire hall could hear. "The King is watching. The Elders are watching. And you can’t even make a 'disgrace' flinch. Who’s the weak one here?"

"I'll kill you!" Thalric screamed, losing his composure entirely. He wasn't a noble anymore; he was a frustrated child throwing a tantrum with a weapon.

"Try," I whispered.

I accelerated the siphon. I stopped just absorbing the heat—I began to devour it. The red glow of the iron began to fade. It went from white, to cherry red, to a dull, sickly orange.

The air around us grew cold. A thin frost began to creep across the Stone of Penitence, spreading outward from my shackles.

"What is happening?" an Elder shouted, standing up from his high chair. "Thalric, pull back!"

"I can't!" Thalric yelled, his voice cracking with genuine terror. "The iron... it’s stuck! I can’t pull it away!"

"It's not stuck, Thalric," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "I'm just not finished with it yet."

I felt the last of the thermal energy snap into my marrow. My cultivation surged, breaking through the first gate of the Foundation Realm with a violent jolt of power. The brand in Thalric’s hand turned a sudden, brittle gray.

The glow died completely.

Clang.

The metal didn't just cool down—it froze. A layer of hoarfrost snapped across the surface of the brand. With a final, predatory smile, I flexed my chest muscles.

The branding iron shattered.

Pieces of cold, dead metal sprayed across the floor like broken glass. Thalric fell backward, staring at the empty, blackened handle in his hand. He looked up at me, his face pale, his lips trembling.

I stood up, the chains on my wrists snapping like they were made of wet paper. I didn't look at the crowd. I didn't look at the King. I looked down at my brother, who was shivering on the floor.

"My turn," I said.

The silence in the hall was absolute, broken only by the sound of my footsteps on the stone. But as I reached for him, the heavy oak doors of the chamber didn't just open—they exploded inward.

A guard drenched in blood stumbled into the room, his eyes wide with a terror that surpassed anything we had just witnessed.

"The Withered Thorns!" he gasped, falling to his knees. "They're not at the border! They're in the courtyard! They've come for the Crown!"

The floor beneath us began to vibrate. A low, rhythmic thumping—like a thousand hearts beating at once—echoed from the depths of the palace.

I looked at the King, then back at the shattered iron at my feet. The Warden's soul in me knew that sound. It wasn't an army. It was a ritual.

"Thalric," I said, leaning down to whisper in my brother's ear as the screams started outside. "You should have killed me when you had the chance. Because now, the real monsters are here, and I'm the only one who knows how to feed them."

The lights in the hall flickered and died, leaving us in a darkness that smelled of burning sins and ancient, rotting earth.