2025-09-11 03:03:08
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Chapter 27: The Crown’s Shadow
The ruins still smoked when Kael reached the stronghold.The Vanguard banners that once snapped above the walls now lay charred in the dirt. Stone towers stood cracked, blackened from within as though fire had eaten them hollow. Not a single cry of resistance had carried into the night; the fortress had fallen in silence, smothered beneath a tide that moved with inhuman precision.Kael stepped across the threshold, boots sinking into ash.The bodies lay where they had fallen, arranged almost unnaturally—soldiers struck down in mirrored stances, as though their deaths had been choreographed. A twisted stillness hung in the air, broken only by the hiss of burning timber.Seris trailed behind him, her blade drawn though the battle had already ended. Her face was pale in the firelight. “No resistance? Not even a warning flare?”“They didn’t need one,” Kael muttered. “The Fang didn’t fight like men. They moved like… reflections.”He didn’t say the rest. That as he walked among the dead, hi
Chapter 26: The Serpent’s Lie
The council’s verdict lingered like ash on Kael’s skin. His oath still burned faintly in his chest, an ember of restraint that hummed beneath his ribs. Yet even within the stronghold’s walls, he could feel eyes on him—soldiers whispering as he passed, wardens exchanging glances. Trust had thinned into suspicion, and suspicion was almost worse than open hatred.Seris walked at his side, but even her silence pressed differently now—measured, cautious, like a blade balanced at rest.By dawn, the first reports came.A scout returned to the gates, armor singed, voice ragged. “They march,” he told the wardens, collapsing to his knees. “The Fang hosts… they move like one. Not soldiers—shadows. Each step the same, each strike mirrored. They don’t speak. They don’t need to.”The chamber stirred with unease. If the Fang had found a way to bind will, to move hosts as a single body, then no line of defense would hold against them for long.And every time the Fang were named, eyes flickered to Kae
Chapter 25: Ashen Oath
The valley smoldered like a graveyard of fire.Kael stumbled through the ash, Seris’s arm steadying him. His body felt fractured, every step tearing against veins still scorched from the crown’s call. The shard in his chest pulsed erratically, no longer steady flame but ragged bursts, like a heart that couldn’t decide whether to live or burn itself out.Behind them, the remains of the Fang encampment groaned and hissed as embers consumed what little had been spared from the blast. Charred corpses of hosts lay where they had fallen, some half-twisted into monstrous serpentine forms before the ritual collapsed. Yet others had fled, carrying shards of the crown’s power with them. The war had only just begun.Kael tried to speak, but only ash came from his throat. Seris stopped him, pressing a flask to his lips. “Save your strength. You nearly burned yourself alive.”“I…” He coughed, his voice raw. “I didn’t choose it.”Her gaze cut sharp. “Didn’t you?”The question lodged deeper than any
Chapter 24: Crown of Ash
The valley below was a bowl of fire.Kael crouched on the ridge beside Seris, his eyes fixed on the Fang encampment. Hundreds of campfires burned in the dark, arranged in circles like ritual markings. Banners of black and crimson swayed in the night wind, each inscribed with the same coiling serpent sigil. And at the camp’s center stood a stone dais, carved from ashrock and pulsing faintly with molten veins.The shard in Kael’s chest flared at the sight, as though recognizing its place. He grit his teeth, clamping a hand over his breastbone.“They’re not just camping,” Thorne murmured. His voice was hushed, but heavy. “That’s a rite. Look how the fires are spaced. They’ve woven a circle—large enough to anchor a crown.”Mira’s face paled. “The Hollow Crown.”Kael nodded grimly. “They mean to reforge it.”Every step of their march had led to this—the burning villages, the mirror sigils carved into the earth, the hosts bearing false marks. It was all preparation for the ritual unfolding
Chapter 23: The Ashen March
The shard would not stay quiet.Even sealed beneath seven wards in the heart of the Vanguard’s stronghold, its pulse bled through walls and stone, rattling chains and igniting whispers in Kael’s dreams. When he closed his eyes, he saw it: a jagged crown fragment, molten veins weaving through its black surface, calling him by the name he hated—Vaeren.It had been three nights since the emissary escaped in smoke and ash. Three nights since Kael had refused the shard, only to find it had not refused him. Wherever he walked in the camp, he felt the pull. Like a tether hooked through his ribs. Like a voice that was not quite sound, urging him to finish what others had begun.The Council kept him close. Guards shadowed his steps, though none dared walk too near. To most, he was no longer Kael Ardyn, comrade or protector. He was a question wrapped in fire. A burden. A threat.By the fourth dawn, rumors spread that the Fang were marching openly. Not in shadows, not through infiltrators, but w
Chapter 22: The Hollow Crown
The summons arrived at dawn, carried by a falcon draped in Vanguard colors. Its cry split the smoky silence of the camp, startling Mira awake and driving Seris to her feet before the letter even touched the ground.Seris unrolled the parchment with a practiced motion. Her eyes skimmed the words once, twice, before hardening. She turned to Kael, who had been standing near the edge of the campfire circle, still half-dreaming of chains and flames.“The Vanguard calls you to stand before the Council,” Seris said. Her voice was steady, but Kael heard the undercurrent of strain. “They demand explanation for the fire you now wield.”Kael’s throat felt dry. “Explanation? Or judgment?”Thorne stirred from where he sat hunched over his staff. “The two are often the same, boy. But better to face them in the open than let rumor and fear decide your fate for you.”Kael nodded, though his stomach twisted. In the flames he had wielded against the False Sigil, he had glimpsed both power and ruin. How
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