Chapter 10 — Monster Part 2

The boy's face wouldn't stop shaking. Not crying—shaking. Like his bones knew something his brain was too young to hold. Riven knelt in front of him, tying the cloth tight over the blood-caked ankle. The kid winced.

"You saw who did this?"

The boy nodded slowly, then blinked.

"You."

Riven froze. "What?"

The child's voice trembled. "He looked like you. He walked like you. He burned everything like you."

No wind. No birds. Just the boy's words, twitching in the smoke.

"They said the Fire Prince came back. You came back. You burned them because they didn't kneel fast enough."

Riven stood. His spine felt like cracked metal. This wasn't just murder. This was branding. Whoever did this wasn't just wearing his face. They were selling it.

Far away, in a candle-lit room behind stone veils and blood pacts, the council met. The ones without names.

"The villagers are whispering now," said a voice behind the Chanter's mask. "They say the fire walks again. They say the boy who burned became the man who devours."

"Good," rasped another. "A myth that kills itself needs no assassins."

"And the rebels?"

"We've planted the rumor. Riven Alden is a traitor. A butcher. A god of ash."

A scroll passed from one skeletal hand to another. On it: Step Two — Turn the rebels against their prince. Make the fire consume its own.

At the far end, a cloaked figure smiled. "Albrecht warned us. He said if the boy survived, he'd return loud. So we made sure the echo started first."

Riven didn't speak for hours.

When Nyra found him, he was kneeling by the ruins of a pigsty. She had blood on her hands, mud in her teeth, and Kerron's pendant clenched like a broken oath.

She dropped it beside him.

"You going to pretend I don't exist now?"

Nothing.

"Riven."

Still nothing.

She stepped closer. "Say it. Say I killed him. Say it, scream it, blame me like I blame myself."

Riven looked up, and the rage in his eyes wasn't fire. It was ice that didn't melt.

"You left him."

Nyra laughed bitterly. "You left me. Don't you dare—"

"He was your brother."

"And what the fuck were you to me? Some ghost with a sword?"

Silence swallowed the space between them. The wind carried smoke from the ruins behind.

"I came back," she whispered. "Isn't that enough?"

"No."

But he didn't push her away when she sat next to him.

The next outpost was supposed to be safe. It wasn't.

Bodies. Everywhere. Rebel scouts, old men with rusted rifles, women with hunting knives still clenched in dead hands.

They'd been burned.

Not with bombs. With precision. With intention. Fire carved through them like handwriting.

On the wall of the largest tent: a message in blood.

"The Fire Eats Its Own. The Prince is Ash Now."

Stray found them there, stomping through the ash like he'd walked from hell.

"You fucking did this?"

"No."

"You expect me to believe that?"

Riven looked around. "This is what they want. Burn their own. Blame me. Scare the rebels. Scare the people. Make the fire so loud no one questions where it came from."

Stray spat. "You think like them now."

Riven pointed at a corpse. "He's got a blade wound. Not mine. Wrong angle. That one over there—burned before she died. Not how I work."

Stray stared.

"You're being framed?"

"I'm being used."

"Same thing."

Night fell like a fist. Riven sat near the mass grave they dug together. He didn't light a fire. Didn't need to. There were still embers glowing in the wood.

Nyra watched him carve something into a plank.

"What are you doing?"

He didn't look up. "If they're going to kill in my name, I'm deciding what that name fucking means."

Names.

Kerron. Smoke. Silence. Stray. Nyra. Fire.

She sat beside him, hands on the pendant again. This time she didn't let go.

He buried the dead himself. One by one. No prayers. Just dirt, sweat, and silence.

When he stood at the grave's edge, the wind took the smoke upward.

"They want me to be a fucking monster," he said.

Nyra didn't answer.

"Let them." He looked up at the stars, eyes unblinking. "But I'll burn back. And I don't care whose fire it is."