Ashes of a Throne

Ashren

Silence followed the scream.

Not the peaceful kind. The heavy, echoing silence of something wrong—something broken beyond repair. Ashren stood with his sword buried deep in the Queen's chest, his arm trembling as her blood hissed against the metal.

She didn't fall.

She smiled.

"You still don't understand," she whispered, fingers brushing his cheek. Her blood oozed down her lips like ink, staining her perfect teeth. "Killing me doesn't end it. It begins it."

Ashren's vision blurred. Something inside him shifted. Broke.

Then howled.

The dead god's voice filled his mind—darker, louder, hungry. The Queen had been the vessel. But he… he was the heir.

"Your throne," she choked, "was always meant for ruin."

She collapsed, crumbling like ash beneath his feet.

But the power didn't vanish.

It surged.

Straight into him.

---

Liora

The relic pulsed in her hands—hot, wild, alive.

Selene gasped. "Now, Liora—now!"

They shattered the seal against the altar stone.

A scream tore across the sky—Ashren's.

But not just his.

It was the god's too.

The relic flared blinding white, burning symbols into the air, into their skin, into the world.

And for a heartbeat, everything stopped.

---

Ashren

He collapsed.

Darkness swallowed him whole.

He dreamed of blood rivers. Of a throne made from his mother's bones. Of power so immense it crushed the stars.

And then—her voice.

"Come back."

Selene's voice.

The rage dimmed.

The fire pulled back.

He breathed.

---

Selene

She caught him as he fell through the portal, barely conscious, skin fever-hot and marked with the divine brand—but alive.

Liora fell to her knees beside him.

"You severed the god?" she asked.

Ashren's eyes fluttered open. "Not… completely."

Selene gripped his face, urgent. "Is she dead?"

He nodded.

"But something… stayed."

---

The Hollow Throne

The palace had crumbled. The seat of the Queen's power was reduced to jagged stone and swirling ash.

But in the heart of the ruin, something pulsed.

A spark.

A voice.

Waiting.

Watching.

Whispering…

Ashren.