Chapter Forty: The Pyre and the Throne
"There is a moment when flame no longer consumes. It becomes memory."
Kael stood on the balcony of the war tower, staring out at the smoldering ruin of the lower city. The Scorchborne had come in the night—silent, swift, ruthless—and left nothing but blackened corpses and broken walls in their wake.
Ash drifted down like snowflakes. Vareth still burned.
Behind him, the high chamber reeked of blood and smoke. Guards carried away bodies of fallen knights. The once-grand war table was cracked clean down the middle, scorched by Heartflame.
"They were waiting for weakness," Riven said, voice low as he joined Kael. His clothes were singed, his cheek smeared with soot. "They moved the moment they saw the city fracture."
Kael's hands clenched against the stone railing. "Not just the Scorchborne. The loyalist remnants are regrouping—former generals, imperial spies. They're clinging to the memory of the Emperor, even though his corpse feeds the crows."
"They want to rebuild the throne."
"They want to own the fire."
The proclamation came at sunrise, nailed in silence to the shattered palace gates.
"The throne of ash shall fall. The fire answers to no crown."
No name. No seal.
But everyone knew who had written it.
The survivors of the Scorchborne attack gathered in the scorched square that once held markets and music. Now it held silence.
Kael stood atop a half-destroyed fountain, his armor streaked with blood, his eyes burning with unyielding fire.
"They thought we would bend," he said, voice echoing against the blackened walls. "They thought a city on fire meant a kingdom falling."
He pulled the burned imperial banner from the wreckage and held it aloft.
"I say let it burn."
He cast it into the flames.
"I will not wear a crown of rot. I will not kneel to ghosts."
The crowd murmured, some stunned, some awakening.
"I was not made to rule the Empire's corpse. I was made to build something new—from ash, from fire, from truth."
Back in the palace, Kael washed the blood from his hands in silence.
Riven watched from the doorway, wrapped in a clean tunic, though soot still clung to his jaw. He hadn't left Kael's side since the battle. Not when the towers fell. Not when the inner gates buckled. Not when Kael collapsed from overusing the Heartflame.
"You're burning yourself away," Riven said.
Kael's hands trembled in the water.
"I see the end coming," Kael admitted. "Even with the Emperor gone… his shadow is still here. His cruelty lives on in those who served him. They'll come for me. For us."
"Then let them."
Kael turned.
Riven stepped in. "If the world comes, we burn it back. Together."
Kael took his hand, fingers tight. "If I fall, don't follow."
"If you fall," Riven said, lips trembling, "I'll burn every god in the sky to bring you back."
Kael smiled through the pain. "Then I'll make sure I live."
That night, Riven dreamed of flame.
He stood in the garden ruins, where twisted vines crawled up scorched stone. A woman waited beneath the ash tree—tall, half-shadow, half-flame. Her hair blew like smoke, and her eyes held stars.
"You carry it now," she said.
"The Heartflame," Riven whispered.
"No. The legacy. Mine. Yours. All the souls the fire has chosen. But you, Riven… you are the last who may choose."
He stepped closer. "Choose what?"
"To let it end. Or to become something more."
She reached for his heart.
Fire poured through him—
He woke choking, chest glowing faintly with emberlight.
Kael knelt beside him. "Another vision?"
Riven nodded. "A warning."
"The Heartflame is evolving," Kael said softly. "And so are you."
Riven touched his sternum where the fire still pulsed faintly. "She said I could end it… or become something else."
Kael met his gaze. "Which will you choose?"
Riven's answer came without hesitation.
"You."
End of Chapter Forty