Chapter 110: Ashes and Oaths

Chapter 110: Ashes and Oaths

The Emberborn's death was not the end.

It was a signal.

A spark.

A heartbeat echoing through the bones of a fractured realm.

Across the southern provinces, where the scars of old wars still marred the earth, fires long held in check began to rekindle. But these fires were no ordinary blaze. They were not tongues of smoke licking the night sky in simple destruction.

They were fires of rebellion.

Fires of remembrance.

Fires of fury.

Word spread like fever.

From crumbling taverns to shadowed alleyways, the stories traveled—whispers that grew into roars.

The Prince of Ash had slain the walking relic.

The Heir of Ivan had stood where even ghosts feared to tread.

Where once the people had crouched beneath Galen's shadow, now they stirred.

In hushed corners and hidden rooms, whispers became pledges.

From ruins and ravines where loyalists had lain silent, old warriors crawled out of hiding.

Banners of the Flame rose again.

Tatters stitched with hope, with memory, with rage.

In Ironhold Citadel, within the cold marble walls of his tower, Galen sat unmoving.

The scrying pool before him reflected not just the battlefields but the tides of unrest surging beneath the surface of the provinces.

He had watched the fall of his ancient ace—the Emberborn—shattered into ash beneath Caedren's blade.

Around him, his court dared not breathe too loudly.

Even his most trusted lieutenants remained in silence, waiting for the inevitable explosion of rage, the retaliation that would rip through the land like a wildfire.

But it did not come.

Only the cold, calculated gaze of a man who had not yet lost.

"He woke it," Galen said at last, voice low and cold like iron grinding.

"And he survived."

A pause stretched like a blade's edge.

"Then we burn everything."

Far to the north, under the blood moon's crimson eye, Caedren lay.

Lysa sat beside him, her hands steady despite the flickering torchlight.

She stitched the last of his wounds with practiced care.

Around them, the camp was quieter than usual—not in mourning, but in reverence.

Few truly understood what had happened on Sylar's Grief.

Few could grasp the weight of that battle, the cost and the meaning.

But all felt it.

"He never screamed."

Caedren's voice was a whisper, barely audible.

Lysa looked up from her work.

"The Emberborn," he said slowly. "He bled light. Burned with hate. But not once did he scream. Even at the end."

Lysa's needle paused mid-stitch.

"You pity him."

Caedren's gaze was distant.

"I think I see myself in him. Or what I might become if I forget what we're fighting for."

She looked at him long and hard.

"Then don't forget."

He nodded.

"I won't."

But Galen had no intention of letting him remember anything for long.

Because the fire of rebellion was only the beginning.

The southern skies erupted within days.

Great towers and spires—once proud bastions of order and law—were set aflame.

Not by soldiers marching under banners.

But by something far more terrifying.

Galen's last line of defense.

The Pyric Choir.

They had once been Ivan's philosophers—keepers of knowledge and seekers of truth.

But Galen had twisted their minds.

Their souls were burned clean and reshaped with heresy.

Now they moved through cities like living flames, chanting their hymns in unison.

Their songs were not melodies but weapons.

They burned resistance.

They torched libraries.

They silenced hope.

Their leader was a woman named Veila.

Once she had stood beside Ivan as his scribe.

Her hands had written the true Flame's secrets.

Now she was cloaked in fire.

And she carried a piece of the Flame.

A shard.

A fragment.

One that had not chosen Caedren.

Veila's eyes glowed with a terrible light.

Her voice carried across the burning streets, a chorus of madness and devotion.

She spoke of cleansing by fire.

She promised rebirth through destruction.

She promised a new order.

A new Flame.

A Flame forged in unyielding will and unquestioning faith.

The people below watched, terrified and transfixed.

The Pyric Choir's fire swept through their homes and hopes.

But in the heart of the rebellion, the ashes were fertile.

And the oaths grew strong.

Caedren's camp prepared for the coming storm.

He gathered his commanders beneath the stars.

His voice was steady, but his eyes burned with the weight of the world.

"We fight not just for survival," he said.

"We fight for memory.

For truth.

For a future that remembers the past—not one erased by fear and flame."

Banners raised high.

Blades sharpened.

Oaths spoken in the dark.

The war was no longer just for land or power.

It was for the soul of the world.

The Pyric Choir marched forward.

Veila's shadow grew long.

Galen's fury smoldered like a volcano ready to explode.

And Caedren's fire burned brighter than ever.

Ashes and oaths.