暴风雨前夕Everything began in silence.
Not the ordinary hush of noble halls, nor the calm before a tempest, but a sharp, unnatural stillness as if the world had held its breath.
Aria stood at the top of the manor's spiral staircase, fingers pressed against the cold stone railing. In the west wing below, servants started to whisper. A cavalryman burst in—mud-splattered, gasping for air.
They were surrounded.
"The Queen has moved," came the report. "Three regiments. Not the Royal Guard—no banners. Just iron. Tattered armor. Worn eyes."
Aria said nothing.
She needed no words.
She turned and descended the stairs, her cloak trailing like a drawn blade.
The Garden Below – Moments Later
Thorian stood among marble statues, wind tangling his hair. He clutched the red book—what he'd begun to call Caelon's Last Will...
He'd barely slept, haunted by whispers not his own. But this—this was no dream, no echo.
Smoke rose from the distant woods. The Queen's soldiers—those whose names had been erased from rosters—were here.
When Aria approached, he didn't stir, only watched her. She was silent at first.
Then simply: "They're here for your blood."
He nodded. "And yours."
She studied him. "If you leave now, I can—"
"No." He stepped toward her. "We end this together."
When he took her hand, she didn't pull away.
When he leaned in to rest his forehead against hers, she held his gaze.
"Whatever I was," he whispered, "whatever Caelon was—I am not him now. But if the Queen wants a monster, she'll face one."
Her voice was barely a breath. "Then let me be your blade."
On the Eve of the Tempest
The Queen's army—the Silent Legion, spoken of only in myths—swept across the manor like war shadows. No horns, no warnings, only steel and fire.
But Valtoria did not yield.
Aria had prepared for this.
In the tallest tower, Thorian placed the red book on a rune-carved table. He drew a dagger,
slashed his palm,
let blood drip onto ancient runes.
Pages flipped of their own accord.
Wind howled through the room.
His body—his bones—quivered.
This was not pain, but the unshackling of memory.
He saw himself in black armor again.
He saw Aria—but no, she was someone else now—
crowned in white stone,
holding a blade,
kissing his throat.
A whisper in his ear: "I love you, even as I kill you."
The Battle of Valtoria
When the Queen's hounds breached the gates, steel struck stone.
Aria moved like shadow and flame, her blade arcing silver. Every motion was muscle memory—ancient, sharp, reborn. Her breath steady. Her gaze: colder than the steel she wielded.
She felled a soldier with no crest but a medal—"First of the Ravens", one of the Queen's secret summons.
Aria tore the medallion from the corpse and stared.
She remembered it.
Buried for a lifetime.
She had worn one too.
No, not Aria. Altheera.
Queen of the Salt-Born. Sworn to end the Flame of Vyslin.
Sworn to end Caelon.
Her hand trembled. "Who am I?"
She had no time for answers.
A second wave assaulted the manor gates.
In the Tower – Thorian's Awakening
Thorian stood barefoot, shirtless, arms outstretched.
Wind whipped around him in a cyclone, red and silver light rising from the floor to wrap him in a storm of ancient names.
Caelon.
Prince of Smoke,
Heir to Empty Flames,
Branded by betrayal, reborn.
He shook, back arching.
Symbols burned into his skin—flaring, fading, returning.
Between breath and madness, he heard her voice—not Aria, not Altheera—but her original voice.
"You were never meant to be king.
You were born to end them all."
He screamed.
Light exploded from the tower.
Aftermath
When the dust settled, the Queen's legion fled—some slain, some blinded, some simply… gone. As if pulled through a door that should never have opened.
Aria stood in the courtyard ruins, face streaked with blood and ash. Her blade dripped, breath ragged.
Through the scorched marble, Thorian stepped from the flames. Naked,
unmarked,
but irrevocably changed.
He met her eyes.
"I remember it all now."
Her heart jolted.
"Then so do I."
End of Chapter 9