They say the walls of Eldros remember everything. The whispers. The blood. The vows broken beneath torchlight. If that’s true, then let them remember this night.

  I stood alone in the Hall of Flame, where kings are crowned and legacies burn. The hearth roared, casting long shadows across the golden lions etched in the marble floor. Symbols of strength. Of dominance. Of a kingdom too proud to admit it's rotting from within.

  Outside, the storm had arrived early—sheets of wind and dust sweeping across the upper terraces. Even the sky seemed angry tonight.

  **My children were already sharpening their teeth.**

  Caleris—the silver-tongued viper—pacing like the throne should already bend to him. Raen, his blade never more than a breath away from someone’s throat. Brynn, too soft for this world. And Avenya… my quiet storm. The one I underestimated.

  They are all pieces of me. And yet, not one of them could bear what I know.

  I moved toward the throne—not to sit, but to stare. **It was forged with gold from the Deep Mines and ash from the first war. Ash and gold. Power and ruin.**

  My reign had started with both.

  Twenty-three years ago, the southern rebellion cost me half my council and nearly my crown. I crushed it. Not with diplomacy, but fire. **It was then that I made a choice no king should make.** A pact. Ancient. Forbidden. Powerful.

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  The people never saw the cost. They saw peace. A golden age. But I’ve watched it unravel thread by thread.

  Raen is too reckless. Caleris too cunning. And Avenya, the only one who never wanted power—might be the only one worthy of it.

  I turned away from the throne, my fingers tightening around the **blackened ring** I wore hidden beneath my robe. It pulsed with a faint heat, as if something inside it stirred.

  The pact will break soon.

  They will come for it—the ones I bargained with. And when they do, I must not be here.

  A sound behind me. Footsteps—too light for a soldier, too confident for a servant.

  I knew who it was before I turned.

  "You shouldn't be here," I said.

  The girl stepped into the firelight, her cloak dripping ash from the storm. Her eyes held the storm itself.

  "I had to see you," she said. "Before it's too late."

  I studied her. Not the robes or the dagger at her belt. I studied the way she stood—like the world hadn’t yet taught her to bend.

  "Avenya, you’ve always known more than I wanted you to."

  She smiled, just barely. “That’s because you’ve always said less than you should.”

  I chuckled, a dry, tired sound. “A crown is a weight, not a reward. You’ll learn that, someday.”

  She stepped closer. “Are you going to die?”

  Children were always the most dangerous when they asked the right questions.

  “No,” I said. “I’m going to disappear. And when I do… the real war begins.”

  She frowned. “Against who?”

  I hesitated. “Against everyone who’s already chosen sides. Against blood. Against old magic. Against the very throne itself.”

  Avenya’s hands curled into fists. “Why tell me this?”

  “Because you’re the only one I trust to burn it all down if they fail us.”

  Then I reached into my cloak and pulled out a folded scrap of parchment. Sealed with no crest. Marked only with a single name: **Sorren**.

  “Find him,” I said.

  “Who is he?”

  “You’ll know when the time is right.”

  A silence passed between us. Thick. Final.

  “Go now,” I said. “Don’t speak of this night again.”

  She turned without another word. She didn’t look back.

  Good.

  Moments later, the Hall was empty again, save for the fire and the lions watching in silence. My time as king was ending. The storm was coming. **And this kingdom was not ready.**

  I stepped back into the shadows behind the throne

  and vanished from history.

  Let them wonder.

  Let them fight.

  Let them burn.