I apologize for the delay on releasing the first chapter of volume 2, there was an unexpected death and I had to attend a funeral, but here the first chapter of volume 2 The Ashborn Rising, I hope y'all enjoyed the first volume Ash and Oaths.
Chapter 31: Ashes into Stone
The cathedral fortress of Caelumbray held its silence like a clenched jaw, black spires knifing up through storm clouds, banners of the Loom dragging in the wind like torn veils. Within its high stone belly light burned low, more shadow than flame, braziers guttering in alcoves where statues of saints watched with empty eyes.
The Warden limped between them, cloak torn, armor cracked at the shoulder, one hand still wrapped in stained bandages where fire had kissed too close. He walked because he had been ordered to, not because his body cared to continue. Two guards flanked him with helms closed and grips tight on halberds, not to protect him, but to make sure he reached the chamber where men larger than him would decide if his tongue was worth keeping.
The doors opened with a groan that rattled the ribs. The chamber beyond lay wide as a field and lined with columns carved to look like threads twisting skyward. At the far end rose the dais of judgment, a half circle of stone where the High Warden sat in his black mantle, priests of the Loom at either side, their faces pale, their eyes colder than the braziers' fire.
The survivor was shoved forward until he fell to his knees. Breath scraped his throat. The chamber echoed with the sound like mockery, and still he forced himself upright. His oath may have been battered, but it had not yet been broken.
"Name," the High Warden said. His voice steady, iron bent into syllables, not a question but a demand, as if even identity belonged to the Church and must be borrowed back with permission.
"Veynar," the man croaked, then steadied. "Veynar, third company, Ember Ravine garrison."
The name of that place hushed the chamber for a heartbeat. Even the priests stiffened, for rumor had already run faster than orders, and rumor spoke of blood and fire and a squad that should have broken but did not.
The High Warden leaned forward, eyes like two chips of obsidian. "Tell us," he said, "what happened in that ravine, and do not salt it with fear. Give me the marrow."
Veynar's hands shook once then stilled. His breath came ragged but his words came sharp. "They were waiting for us, my lord. The forest itself seemed to bend to them, illusions thick as fog, ground sown with hidden snares that swallowed men whole, thunder stones that burst our shields like parchment. We pressed, we tried, but every step was met with hammer, with spear, with arrow."
He paused, eyes flicking from priest to priest, as if measuring how much truth they could bear before the lash fell. "And then him," Veynar said, softer now, softer as if the word itself threatened to unravel. "The outsider."
The High Warden's jaw tightened, but he did not interrupt. His silence a blade held at the man's throat.
"He cut," Veynar whispered, fingers twitching as if trying to show the gesture without meaning to. "I cast, I felt the weave ready to strike, and he split it mid air, threads unravelled like ash in wind. I saw it, I swear it. The man is no liar's tale, he cut what only the Saint was ever said to cut."
The chamber stirred like a nest of snakes. Priests murmured sharp, one spat the word "Blasphemy," another "Sign," another "Lie," until the High Warden's hand raised and silence fell like a curtain.
"Continue," he ordered, though his eyes never left Veynar's face, measuring whether this survivor spoke madness or prophecy.
Veynar licked cracked lips. "He fought with fire that burned hotter than powder, with wind that bent his steps faster than sight. His spear sang like steel set on edge, each strike unmaking what we built. He moved like the Saint himself returned, and worse" his voice caught, he clenched his jaw, spat blood from where his tongue had bitten, and forced the rest out. "The beasts spared him, spared the children. They flowed like a tide around him, they tore us apart but would not touch his thread, as if the Loom itself had marked him, as if the forest answered his call."
The silence after those words was not empty, it was heavy. It pressed down on the braziers until their flames bent low, it pressed down on Veynar's shoulders until his back bowed, it pressed down on the priests until their whispers hissed again. "Beastcaller." "False Saint." "Heretic."
The High Warden rose, mantle spilling down the steps like night itself. He stepped close enough that Veynar smelled the oil on his armor and the incense on his skin. "And you survived," he said, low, dangerous.
Veynar's throat bobbed. "By cowardice, my lord. By luck. By the beasts choosing me less worthy of their teeth. I do not pretend to understand why I breathe, only that I saw, and what I saw will burn my sleep until I die."
The High Warden studied him long enough for sweat to pool at the edge of his collar, then turned his face to the priests. "You hear," he said, voice ringing now, voice meant for more than these walls, "the lies of our enemies grow bold. They weave themselves into flesh, into fire, into beasts. But lies they remain. He is no Saint. He is a corruption, a beastcaller wearing stolen skin."
One priest, older than stone, hissed, "But the people will whisper Caelus reborn. They will see his cutting, they will see beasts spared. How do we bury such whispers when even Thornveil trembles with them already?"
The High Warden's eyes narrowed. "We bury them under fear, under fire, under the weight of our hymn. We tell the villages he bends beasts because he is part of them, a heretic who summons monsters to devour children and turn them against the Loom. We show his face not as savior but as doom."
Another priest leaned forward, his voice sharp as quills scratching parchment. "Then we will need more blood, more cages, more proof. The people must see us guard them or they will drift toward his fire."
The High Warden nodded once, cold and absolute. "Then so be it. Double the patrols. Burn those who harbor whispers. Seize the young and purify them. Better a lie told in holy fire than a truth that leads to ruin."
Veynar flinched at those words, his mouth opening then shutting again, for he knew better than to speak. He had already said too much, yet the memory of children's wide eyes behind cages still lived in his skull, and his silence tasted of ash.
The High Warden turned back to him, mantle dragging, eyes like a forge gone cold. "You will not return to your company," he said. "You will be sent to the penance battalion, where death is the only oath left for you to swear. You lived when better men died, so now you will pay until the Loom chooses to cut you."
Guards moved forward, seized Veynar by the arms, dragged him backward through the chamber, his boots scraping stone, his head hanging low. But his mind burned with the same truth he had spoken, the outsider cut, the outsider burned, the outsider lived, and the Loom itself had not struck him down.
The High Warden raised his hand, and the priests bent their heads. The hymn began low, rising like smoke, words twisting the truth into chains. And outside the cathedral fortress the bells tolled, each peal a warning sent across the land.
The Ashborn had been named by rumor. And now the Church would name them heresy.
A month had passed since the Ember ravine battle.
The forest remembered still. Char and smoke clung to roots, silence lingered in the places where men had screamed, and yet life pressed forward. Moss crawled over broken walls. Birds sang above graves not yet found. The Loom hummed with the faint rhythm of recovery, though not all wounds could be mended.
In that time the Ashborn did not rest.
The temple where they had first gathered their strength became a forge of preparation. Thorek's hammer sang from dawn until the sky bruised. Grenades piled in neat rows like blackened apples. Powder flasks, sharp iron nails, and casings carved from scavenged pipe filled crates that lined the walls. The dwarf cursed, laughed, and bled over every piece, his beard singed more often than not.
Elvi strung new bows, cut fresh arrows, and drilled Noll until his fingers blistered. She made him nock and loose in the dark, in fog, in rain, until he could hit the chalk mark she drew blindfolded. When he cursed, she cursed louder, when he bled, she bound it, when he finally split the bull's eye in one motion, she gave him the smallest nod and called it enough. For now.
Lysera traced wards across the stone floors until chalk dust coated her sleeves and ash clung to her hair. Her veils grew steadier, wider, less fragile. Where once she could hold a doorway, now she could wrap an entire chamber in threads tight enough that Thorek's grenades tested but did not break it. She did not smile often, but when she looked at her work, her eyes held a quiet satisfaction.
Hale drilled them as soldiers. Marching, flanking, fallback. Signals with hands, signals with whistles, signals in silence. He had them climb rope walls, cross wet logs, fight in the mud until their armor stank and their tempers frayed. When they snarled at each other, he only raised a brow and told them good, better to break here than in the field.
And Elias.
He had bled in practice more times than in battle. Day by day, he pushed the hum in his ribs further. First coaxing flame along his spear. Then sparking it at a distance. Then shaping it, molding it, until fire bent forward like a bowstring pulled. When he loosed it at last, a ball of flame hurled from the point of his spear, it struck the far wall with a roar that made Thorek cheer and Elvi dive for cover.
"About bloody time," Thorek crowed, beard smoking from the blast. "Now you're worth carrying powder for."
Elias laughed then, the sound hoarse but real, his chest heaving, sweat pouring, but for the first time since Ava's memory had followed him into this world, he felt the Loom not as a curse but as a craft he might one day master.
Rook grew too. The wolf no longer just followed. He guarded, herded, hunted. He seemed to understand the drills Hale set, keeping pace at Elias's knee in perfect step, slipping into the trees and circling back without sound. When Noll wept one night from nightmares, it was Rook who pressed against him until the boy slept again.
The Ashborn had changed. They had sharpened. And yet they all knew sharpening was not enough.
The Church's reach stretched long. Thornveil whispered with rumors. Villages carried stories faster than fires carried sparks. Some called Elias the Saint reborn, others whispered heretic. Some cheered, some spat. But all watched. And the Wardens would not rest.
It was Lysera who said it first, standing at the temple threshold as fog curled low around the trees. "We cannot keep to ruins forever. This place is a refuge, not a stronghold. When they come, it will fall."
Thorek grunted in agreement. "Stone breaks when it's already cracked. We need walls meant to bite back."
And so Thorek spoke of a place.
An old dwarven hold, abandoned since the Breaking, carved deep into the bones of the hills north of Thornveil. Once a fortress, once a forge, left empty when veins dried and the mountain's heart grew silent. But its walls remained, its gates thick, its halls deep. A place where stone still remembered how to stand.
"We called it Karvendral," Thorek said, eyes glinting with the memory. "Stonehome of the Third Clan. My grandsire's grandsire left it when the forges cooled. It won't be warm. It won't be kind. But it'll hold. Better than this broken chapel ever could."
Elias turned the thought over and found no fault. "Then we move. If we're building something that lasts, it starts with stone."
Hale nodded, already weighing routes, supplies, risk. Elvi spat into the fire and said better to die under a mountain than in another ruined temple. Noll only asked if there would be room for wards, and Lysera told him stone was the best canvas a weaver could ask for.
They packed. They prepared. They made ready not just for survival, but for the first steps of something larger.
The Ashborn had been named by their oath. Now they would carve that name into stone.
Fog clung to Thornveil when they left.
Not the creeping kind that hid knives, but the steady gray that seemed to bless their departure, soft, solemn, a curtain drawn between what had been and what must be.
They moved at dawn. Elias at the front, spear across his back, Rook pacing tight at his knee. Hale behind him, eyes flicking to every tree, every ridge, never still. Lysera and Noll in the center, their packs heavy with chalk, rope, spare core stones. Thorek staggered under his hammer and two crates strapped to his broad back, grenades rattling with each step. Elvi walked light, her bow strung again, quiver refilled, a new short sword at her hip.
The forest did not fight them. Not today. No illusions, no beasts, no Warden ambush. The path was theirs alone, though every crack of twig and whisper of branch carried weight. Elias felt the Loom's hum steady but sharp, like a bowstring pulled and waiting for the note.
By midday, they left the thickest of Thornveil behind. The ground rose, hills swelling into ridges, ridges into jagged teeth. The air thinned, colder, cleaner. Moss gave way to lichen, roots to stone.
Thorek led now, his stride sure on the rising slope. He spoke as they climbed, voice rolling like the hills themselves.
"Karvendral wasn't the first hold," he said, "but it was one of the proudest. Built when the Third Clan was young, when we thought we'd hammer forever. We cut the mountain so clean it sang when you struck it. Gates that could turn an army. Forges so deep they warmed the bones of men through winter. We thought it would last until the Loom cut the world itself."
He spat, beard bristling. "Then the veins dried. No ore, no fire. And dwarves without iron are like sailors without sea. My grandsire's line packed up, left it behind. Said stone without fire is just a tomb."
Elvi raised a brow. "And now you want us to move in."
"Aye," Thorek said, not ashamed. "Stone may be cold, but it remembers. And a tomb can still keep out thieves. Better than rotting in Thornveil while the Wardens sharpen their blades."
The sun dipped lower. Clouds thickened, wind cutting sharper through the crags. By evening, they reached a narrow pass where the hills pressed tight, cliffs rising sheer on either side.
Hale raised a hand, the signal to halt. "Ambush ground," he murmured. "Too tight, too clean."
Elias felt it too. The Loom thrummed off key here, a subtle dissonance, like strings tuned wrong. His fingers itched toward his spear. Rook stiffened, hackles lifting.
They moved careful, slower, weapons drawn. Elvi padded to the side, eyes sharp. Lysera's threads brushed faint across the stone, searching for hidden wards.
The first arrow clattered off Thorek's crate.
The dwarf swore, spun, hammer in hand before the sound died.
Shapes slid from the rocks above, not Wardens, not men at all. Thin figures with skin pale as limestone, eyes black pits that swallowed the light. Blades of bone and stone in their hands. Half a dozen, then more, scrambling spiders like down the cliffs.
"Ravagers," Lysera hissed, veil snapping into place across the pass. The first arrow stuck and shattered, threads sparking.
Elias planted his spear, fire racing down its length. He loosed a ball of flame upward, the blaze smashing into a Ravager mid-climb, sending it shrieking into the rocks. Another skittered past the veil, fast, too fast, only to meet Elvi's short sword flashing quick and clean, blood black against stone.
Thorek roared, grenades clattering from his crate as he swung the hammer one handed, smashing a Ravager into the cliff face so hard bones powdered. Hale barked orders sharp as steel, driving them to keep formation. Noll clutched his threads tight, warding small circles around each of them, sweat dripping into his eyes as he forced the weave to hold.
The Ravagers pressed, but they were not Wardens. They had no order, no line. They were hunger with limbs, desperation with teeth. Against the Ashborn, sharpened by weeks of training, they broke.
When the last one fell hissing into the dust, silence roared louder than the fight had.
Elias wiped blood from his cheek, chest heaving. "Friends of yours, Thorek?"
The dwarf spat again, hammer slick. "Not unless I've got uglier cousins than I thought. Ravagers nest in the cracks. Starved things, half shadow, half man. More will come if they smelled us. We move."
And they did.
They pressed on until the stars wheeled high, until the moon bled pale light across the ridges. Then, at last, the mountain came into view.
Karvendral.
It loomed against the night like the ribcage of a god. Black cliffs rising sheer, a gate carved into their face, thirty feet high, twenty wide, flanked by pillars that once gleamed with runes now dulled by centuries. The doors were stone, seamless, fitted so tight it looked like the mountain had grown them whole. Above, a carving stretched across the arch, a hammer striking an anvil, sparks leaping into threads that twisted into stars.
Thorek's voice broke soft, reverent. "Home."
No one mocked him for it. Even Elvi, sharp tongued as ever, only stared. Lysera's veil brushed the gate, and her eyes widened at the threads that still hummed faint inside the stone.
"It's sealed," she whispered. "But not broken. The Loom still runs here."
Elias stepped forward, laid his hand against the gate. Cold. Solid. The hum under it deep as the ocean. For a moment he felt small again, the way he had in Aeloria's glade, a drop standing before the tide.
He looked back at his squad. At Hale steady, Elvi sharp, Thorek burning, Lysera unreadable, Noll wide eyed, Rook still and waiting.
"We came for a stronghold," Elias said, voice low, the words carrying in the mountain air. "Looks like the mountain was waiting."
The night wind curled around them. The stars wheeled on. And Karvendral stood, gates shut, secrets sealed, daring them to claim it.