ILuvRem

Ashes of Xerces
A Dark Fantasy WebNovel

Betrayed. Slain. Reborn in bone.

Xerces was a man with no legacy—just another soul swept aside by war and greed. But death was not his end. Awakened in a shattered crypt as a skeletal Lich, bound by forgotten magic and cursed immortality, Xerces is cast into a world ruled by monsters, kingdoms, and ancient magic.

Haunted by fragments of his past and hunted by those who sense his rising power, Xerces walks the line between man and monster. To survive, he must master forbidden sorcery, raise the dead beneath his banner, and learn to walk unseen among the living. But his resurrection came with a price—and a purpose.

The Nocturne Clan, vampiric tyrants who orchestrated his death, still rule from their obsidian spires, feasting on blood and fear. Xerces has not forgotten. He will not forgive.

From cursed forests to forgotten ruins, from phantom cities to crumbling thrones, Xerces’ journey begins in shadows—but it will end in fire.

He was a man once.
Now, he is death reborn.
And the world will kneel before his ashes.

Ashes Of Xerces

They brought her the news in silence.

The chamber was cold. Not because of the stone or the altitude, but because of what had just slipped through the weave of fate itself.

She stood at the edge of her throne's dais, a goblet of still-warm blood trembling slightly in her hand. Her reflection flickered in the wine—flawed and eternal. Her gaze, once hardened by centuries of war, was now distant.

"I saw it in my dream," she said, voice like velvet over glass. "He was cloaked in dusk. Cloaked in death. But the fire in him… it was not extinguished."

Behind her, her court bowed their heads. Even the high priest of the Nocturne dared not speak.

She placed the goblet down, fingers trembling.

"Xerces," she breathed. "You live… after all."

Not as the man she remembered. Not as the mortal who once walked beside kings and dragons.

She walked alone into her garden—a garden of withered roses that never died. They had been watered in the blood of a thousand sacrifices, kissed by moonlight and decay. Each bloom a memory. A wound.

There was one flower that never opened.

She knelt beside it now, claws gently touching its blackened stem.

"I killed you," she whispered. "Or I thought I did. I watched your bones fall to ash. I watched your people burn."

Wind stirred the garden. The roses whispered.

"But you came back, didn't you?" she said. "And now the Devourer fails to consume a girl with fire in her veins. A girl who stands beside you. A girl you protect."

Valanya's eyes glistened with something dangerously close to grief.

"I had to destroy you. You were too kind. Too human. That was your weakness. And it was your curse."

She clenched her fist. Blood dripped down her palm.

"And now you wear death like a crown."

She stood, tall once more, and looked toward the horizon—the place where the dead lands met the skies.

"I will finish what I started," she vowed. "You may have forgotten what you were, Xerces. But I remember."

Her voice was colder than the crypts.

"You were the light that stood against the dark. And I… I am the dark that taught you how to burn."

"Summon the High Bloods. Prepare the ritual. We will awaken what sleeps in the Hollow Star."

And deep beneath her court, something vast stirred.

Interlude — The Thorns of Immortality (Valanya’s POV)