Location: The Obsidian Wastes — The Forgotten Throne
POV: Ashren Vale
Ashren couldn't sleep anymore.
Every time his eyes closed, the visions returned—rivers of black fire, a sky split by screaming stars, and a throne made of bone and sorrow rising from the earth like a memory too cruel to forget.
The voice always followed.
> "Come back. It is yours. It has always been yours."
He tried to ignore it. Tried to bury himself in the rebuilding of a world left in ruins.
But you cannot rebuild when the rot is inside you.
---
The Night the Stars Wept
It began with blood rain.
The priests said it was just residual magic—residue from the war against Thamaris. But Ashren knew better. The blood was old. Familiar. It tasted like home.
He followed it across the red hills until he found it:
A path paved in bones leading to the Obsidian Wastes—a place no map dared name, where the ancient god-kings had fought their first war.
And there, beneath a crescent moon, the throne waited.
Black as despair. Empty. But waiting.
---
The Crown that Whispers
It lay at the throne's base.
A circlet of thorns and steel, pulsing with a dark heartbeat. Ashren reached for it, hesitated.
> "I am not him. I will never be him."
But the voice answered:
> "You are him. You are what he feared most. The king born of broken gods."
Ashren touched the crown.
Flame raced up his veins, igniting every memory, every regret. Visions poured into him—Caelis bleeding in the snow, Seris screaming in fire, himself standing over a world drowned in ash… wearing this.
But in one vision—just one—he saw hope.
Himself, crowned and calm, ending the cycle. Not a tyrant. Not a god. But something new.
> A breaker of thrones.
---
The Pact of Bone
A figure emerged from the shadows.
Tall. Wreathed in mist. Face wrapped in silk.
"The Bone Oracle," Ashren breathed.
"Yes," the creature hissed. "And I have come to offer a choice. One crown to bind you. One crown to free you. You must choose before the first moon bleeds."
"What happens if I don't choose?"
The Oracle's face split into a grin of skulls.
> "Then the throne chooses for you."
---
Final Scene — The Choice Begins
Ashren stood before the throne of echoes, crown in one hand, a dagger in the other.
Above him, the moon cracked—bleeding light across the sky.
And the voice whispered, no longer cruel. Just true.
> "A king will rise. Whether in mercy… or madness."