Chapter 9: Monster
The road was cracked and bleeding, just like Riven.
He walked with the limp of someone who hadn't healed, who wouldn't allow himself to. His coat hung ragged, soaked in sweat and blood—some of it Kerron's, most of it his own. Eastward, past broken fences and hollow-eyed villagers, past rusted tools left to rot beside fallow fields. The kind of east that didn't lead to salvation. Just more scars.
An old man spat in the dust as Riven passed.
"Prince Butcher. You gonna torch us too, eh?"
Riven didn't flinch. Didn't speak. Just kept walking.
Let them spit. Let them hate. At least it meant they were still breathing.
Back at the rebel camp, Nyra tried to hold herself together with nothing but resolve and duct-taped pride. It wasn't working. The silence in her tent clung to her skin. Whispers slithered around her like leeches.
"She brought him. She's why Kerron's dead."
"She's an Imperial pawn."
"She's poison."
Stray defended her like a damn idiot, barking at anyone who stepped too close. But Stray didn't know what she knew. About the pendant tucked into her cloak. About how Kerron had looked at her the last time. The blood. The heat. The way his body jerked and collapsed as if the world itself had yanked the soul from him.
She found his pendant again, fingers trembling.
Her breath shattered. She dropped to her knees. Cried without a sound.
She couldn't stay.
She left that night without telling anyone, chasing a man who'd sooner stab than speak.
The gorge twisted like a wound cut into the land. The narrow bridge was slick with old rot and birdshit, but it held.
Riven crossed halfway before the world clicked wrong.
Then came the arrows.
They sang.
One scraped his shoulder, another thunked into the wood at his feet. He dove forward, rolled hard, pulled free his blade.
Bandits? No. These bastards were in armor.
Blackened old Imperial sets. Twisted and melted. The kind of armor worn by men who should've died already.
"We were buried by your fucking Empire," one hissed from the cliffs. "Now we dig graves for the living."
The fight was vicious. Fast. Riven took a dagger to the ribs. A bad hit. Wet. But he laughed.
"You want fire? I was born in it."
He cleaved through two. Broke a third's neck with his knee. The last ran. Muttering something about bounties. About The Ash Commander.
Great. Another name. Another ghost-story stitched to his face.
Miles away, the Empire seethed.
In a cold chamber of cracked stone, voices gathered. Shadows with names, exiles with power. One leaned forward, face half-burned, eyes gleaming.
"He's stirring ghosts. Old loyalties. Dangerous ones."
Another nodded. A woman with silver rings and no mercy.
"Then we rewrite the myth. We burn villages and sign his name in ash. We give them a devil to hate."
"And the Chanter?"
The door opened. He stepped in ,robed, smiling, teeth like knives.
"Give me three days. I'll make them beg for his execution."
Riven didn't hear the lies yet.
The village was already burning by the time he arrived. No soldiers. No battle. Just flame. Smoke so thick it clung to his throat.
He ran through it. Screams echoed between collapsed homes. A woman clutched a corpse. A child sobbed behind a barrel.
He grabbed the child. "Who did this?"
The kid blinked through tears. Whispered:
"The Burned Prince. He… you. It was you."
Riven stood frozen. That smoke. It smelled like Kerron. Like the trap.
They were using his fire.
He looked at his bloodied hands.
Someone wanted him to be the monster.
Fine.
He'd show them what a fucking monster really looked like.
"They want war?" he muttered, stepping into the flames.
"Then I'll show them what the fire remembers."