Ash and Crown
Ashren
He awoke gasping, drenched in sweat, the world around him eerily still.
No shadows. No voices. No burning mark.
Just silence.
And Selene—collapsed beside him, blood still blooming from the wound she'd carved into herself to reach him.
"Mother?" His voice cracked.
Her eyes fluttered open slowly, like a sunrise fighting through smoke.
"You came back," she rasped.
"So did you."
She reached for his face, trembling. "I thought I'd lost you."
"You almost did."
He didn't say it with anger.
He said it like truth—raw, hard, and earned.
---
Kael
They returned from the ruins three days later, their bodies worn, their magic quiet, their faces unreadable.
Kael was the first to meet them at the edge of the old forest.
When he saw Ashren walking—taller, quieter, older in the eyes—he knew.
He had awakened.
He also knew something else.
Selene had paid a price.
There was something distant in her gaze. Not broken. But emptied.
Like she could remember her son's face… but not his childhood.
---
The Queen
"Selene lives," the war priest said.
The Queen didn't move.
"And the boy?"
"He is changed."
She turned, slowly.
"They severed the vessel."
The war priest nodded. "The gods helped her."
The Queen's mouth twitched into a humorless smile.
"Then we'll use something older."
She turned to the altar behind her—where a chained relic pulsed, alive with forgotten blood.
The Heart of Thariel.
The last breath of a god who died cursing creation itself.
"He will come to me," she said. "Willingly."
"Why?" asked the priest.
The Queen looked toward the sky.
"Because I will give him what his mother cannot."
---
Ashren
He stared at his reflection in the shallow water of the palace garden.
Same face.
New eyes.
The god inside him was gone—but not the hole it left.
Something had filled it.
Not darkness.
Not power.
Something else.
And he wasn't sure if that scared him more.
Selene approached, moving with a slight limp. She sat beside him.
He looked at her. "Do you remember… me?"
She hesitated.
"I remember you, Ashren. But the rest…" She touched her temple. "It's like chasing smoke."
He smiled faintly. "Then I'll help you remember."
---
Final Scene – The Queen's Invitation
That night, a raven landed at the gates of Selene's stronghold.
Not a bird of nature—but of spell and bone.
It dropped a scroll, sealed in black wax.
Ashren read the message aloud.
> "To the child of broken blood and borrowed fate—come to the Hollow Throne. Come alone. Or watch the world pay the debt of your defiance."
Ashren crumpled the scroll.
"She's calling me."
Selene's breath hitched. "We're not ready."
Ashren's voice was low.
"Then we have to be. Because this time… I'm not running."