Chapter 87 – The Wound Beneath the Root
The parchment arrived soaked in wax and sealed with the black sigil of the Southern Dominion—a raven devouring a crown. No pleasantries. No ambiguity.
"We do not recognize the authority of the rootless king.
The Council is dissolved in the South.
The Dominion now walks alone."
It was signed by Lady Cireth.
When Caedren read the letter, his hand trembled—not from fear, but from the unspoken promise hidden between the lines.
Tarn spoke first. "She's not just seceding. She's declaring succession. She means to crown another."
Caedren looked to the council hall, now rife with whispering factions.
"Who?" he asked.
Tarn met his gaze. "The Remnant."
The Southern capital of Morvale rose in defiance overnight. Black banners replaced royal blue. Every statue of Kael, Ivan, and the Nine were pulled down, replaced by twisted symbols carved into ancient stone—roots inverted, thorns coiled.
In a public square, Cireth spoke:
"We were promised peace.
We were promised a future.
But what have we received but whispers, omens, and shadows crawling up our walls?
The world does not need a boy chasing myths.
It needs a king with memory."
Behind her stood the Remnant.
He said nothing.
But his silence shook more hearts than any roar of rebellion.
Meanwhile, within the crypt-vaults beneath the Capitol, Lysa stood before an artifact sealed since Kael's age: the Ash Mirror.
It shimmered, reflecting not the room—but a different one. A chamber Caedren had never entered. A map Caedren had never seen.
"Show me the blood that still remembers Ivan," she whispered.
And for a moment, she saw them.
Not names. Not faces. Just echoes.
Five still lived who had touched Ivan's dream—and turned from it.
Five whom the tree had never forgotten.
One… in the South.
One… within the Capitol.
Three… beyond the mountains, where the sky turned gold at dusk.
Caedren stood at the gates of the central court, armor unadorned, sword at his hip, the ashwood petal strung around his neck.
Councilor Veylan approached, clearly shaken.
"You cannot think to march," he said. "If you leave, the Capitol fractures."
"If I stay," Caedren said, "the world forgets what I stand for."
"But what do you stand for?" Veylan hissed.
Caedren turned, the wind catching his cloak.
"That truth is not a weapon to be buried.
And that memory must be earned, not inherited."
He walked past him without another word.
That night, the Capitol sky wept.
The ash tree in the northern courtyard shed not leaves, but bark.
The sigils etched into its trunk began to bleed sap—amber and silver—and from within that sap, small voices began to whisper.
"Ivan's final student lives."
"The flame forgotten will return in black."
"Only the one who turns from legacy may rewrite it."
Lysa knelt beside her old armor—patched with years, scarred with truths. She did not yet don it. But she did reach for the blade she once buried, long before she became his protector.
Its name was Verrowind—the knife of swift endings.
She whispered to it as an old friend.
"We walk south tomorrow."
And in the farthest ridge, where the stars burned closer to the earth, a girl no older than seventeen traced the spiral sigil into the dirt.
She bore no crown.
But her voice echoed with the cadence of ancient kings.
"I dreamt of a world burning," she said to the wind. "And I heard a voice say: 'Find the boy with the petal of ash. Protect him. Or kill him.'"
She rose.
And followed the stars west.