Chapter 19 – Ashes in the Wind
Dawn seeped slowly over Valaris — not gold, but smoke, curling through the city's ribs like memory rising from a battlefield. The kind that clung to every stone and seam, heavy as breath withheld — soft, lingering, unclaimed. It filtered through the spires and over the marble domes, touching even the war banners with a haze that blurred symbol into shadow.
At the edge of the eastern quarter, the War Spire loomed — a relic of older blood and quieter wars. Blackstone and steel, untouched by time, it rose like a broken fang above the courtly architecture below. Few entered. Fewer left.
Lady Morveth stood beneath the open arch of its highest terrace, cloak drawn tight against the morning wind. Below her, the city murmured to life — distant bells, market carts, footsteps echoing in wet stone alleys. But here, in the spire, there was only silence.
Behind her, a raven settled on the balustrade.
Then the footsteps came.
Measured. Leather. Not armored.
A courier approached through the mist, hood soaked and head bowed. He did not speak until Morveth turned — a slow motion, like mist parting around something older than air.
"Well?" she asked.
The man swallowed once.
"He did not return."
Morveth's gaze didn't flicker.
"No report?"
The courier hesitated. "Only the horse came back. Saddle empty. Satchel torn."
He offered her the worn scrap of leather, still damp. She took it without ceremony.
"Was he followed?" she asked.
"No, my lady. Not a single track west of the Ashriver. As if the woods swallowed him whole."
A pause.
Morveth's fingers curled around the strap of the satchel. Not tightly. Just enough.
"Then we were seen," she murmured.
The courier looked up, confused.
"My lady?"
She turned back to the edge, hair catching briefly in the breeze, like black silk tugged by unseen threads.
"Good," she said.
And then, softly, to herself:
"Now we know what wakes when we knock."
She walked below the spire's crown, beneath layers of stone and shadow, the air changed. Where Morveth's voice had faded into wind, the breath of older fire still lingered.
The Ember Hall lay deep within the War Spire...
No windows, no flames. Only coals breathed there, glowing faintly beneath carved iron braziers, their heat pulsing like the slow beat of something buried. The air carried the scent of burnt resin and blood-ink — a perfume of old rites and older secrets. Smoke curled low across the floor, slithering like thought. The air tasted of ash and iron, sacred and old.
Lady Morveth moved without sound.
Across the chamber, the Prexie of Ash waited — veiled in soot-colored silk, her robes layered like old parchment, each fold laced with ritual burn-marks. She sat not on a throne, but on a stone platform ringed by spent candles, her hands resting in a shallow bowl of cold ashes.
"You summoned," the Prexie said, her voice dry as cinders.
"I did," Morveth replied, stepping into the circle of coals.
The priestess stirred the ash slowly, fingers tracing forgotten patterns. Tiny sparks flared where her skin met dust — not magic, not yet. Just memory. Just warning.
"The envoy is gone," Morveth said. "Taken, likely. Or unmade. No word returned."
"And yet you smile." The Prexie did not look up.
"It means they saw us," Morveth said. "Which means they fear us enough to hide."
The ash hissed, like breath through teeth.
"You court a storm with parchment walls."
Morveth circled the coals once, arms behind her back.
"I court nothing. I guide it. The world needs fear again. Something pure."
"And Luceris?"
Morveth paused.
The silence that followed was not hesitation. It was permission — for truth to step forward.
"He's an echo. A name in robes. A shadow that lingers, even when the light forgets it. If he returns, he brings questions. Weakness. A claim I do not need."
"And if he dies?"
Morveth met her gaze through the veil.
"Then he becomes a martyr."
"Which do you prefer?"
Morveth's smile was small. Measured. Honest. And just beneath it, a single thought whispered — Let them believe this was certainty. Her voice followed, quieter now, but unwavering:
"Neither. I prefer silence."
The Prexie's hand moved, scattering the ash with a single motion.
From the grey spread rose the faint shape of a figure — barely formed, crowned with flame, cloak trailing into nothing.
"The Hollow Star," the Prexie whispered. "He rises. Not like a king. Like a wound."
Morveth studied the form. There was no fear in her. Only calculation.
"Then we salt the wound," she said.
The priestess tilted her head.
"And what if it heals?"
Morveth turned from the ash, voice low and sharp.
"Then we remind the world what it means to bleed."
And with that, she stepped beyond the coals. The emberlight followed for a moment — then died.
Steps echoed faintly through the stone as Morveth ascended once more, leaving the sanctum behind
The upper chamber of the War Spire bore no banners. No windows. Just a long table carved from obsidian-veined wood, and a single oil lamp that burned without smoke.
Lady Morveth stood at its head, fingers gliding over a rolled scroll sealed with lead. The symbol upon it was old — older than Valaris itself. A broken circle, ringed in thorns. Not a weapon. A wedge.
The Sigil of Fracture.
It had not been used since the Border Dissensions, when kings wore crowns of iron and trust could not survive two meals.
Behind her, a shape moved.
The figure was tall — wrapped in black leather, cloak stitched with runes too faded to read. A hood covered the face, but the smell of brimstone lingered. Beneath the fabric, something ancient stirred — not a memory, but the shape of one. It had worn forms before, in darker wars, beneath red moons. This one fit like borrowed skin. Not strong. Not foul. But present. Like something that remembered fire too well.
"You summoned," it said, voice low and without resonance — like stone ground in silence.
"I require eyes," Morveth replied. "But not the kind that blink."
The figure tilted its head.
"You seek death?"
"No. I seek tension. Fracture. Panic. You will enter the village. Not as sword. As whisper."
"And if I am seen?"
"You won't be."
Morveth turned to the table, unsealing the scroll with a slow crack. She unfurled it across the dark wood. The ink shimmered faintly — not written, but burned into place.
"This is their weakness," she said, pointing to the names. "Not the elf. Not the soldiers. The faith around him. The myth they're building."
She slid the scroll toward the figure.
"Seed doubt. Suggest betrayal. Let the silence around him become too loud to ignore."
The figure did not move.
"And if the elf sees through it?"
Morveth looked up, eyes sharp.
"Then you will die by flame."
The figure chuckled once — a low, hollow sound that wasn't quite laughter. Somewhere behind the sound, a thought lingered: And when the time comes, I will choose the stronger flame.
"You speak of gods, lady. But bleed like mortals."
Morveth stepped closer, the lamplight catching the edge of her smile.
"Yes. And you will learn how sharp mortality can cut."
She handed the scroll over. he took it without reverence, slipping it into the folds of its cloak.
"And the name you shall use?" she asked.
The figure paused. Then:
"Whichever they curse last."
Morveth said nothing more.
The chamber dimmed as the oil lamp flickered — not from wind, but something colder. Something shifting.
Far below, in the lower chambers, scribes began to write. Letters to border lords. Trade guilds. Minor houses forgotten by the throne but hungry for relevance. Morveth was already laying the kindling.
And when Valaris slept.
Not peacefully — never peacefully — but with the hum of power pacing through stone and blood. The War Spire cast its shadow over the noble quarter, and the torches along the eastern walls guttered low, their flames shrinking.
A figure moved between rooftops.
No cloak now. No name.
Just a ripple in the dark — weightless, soundless, patient. The wards of the city did not stir. The tower mages, sleeping behind their runes, did not wake. Even the Whisperborn priestesses beneath the temple dome turned restlessly, but did not see.
Something had left Valaris.
Beyond the walls, the land shifted. The cobbles gave way to frost-bitten paths, then to the wilds — brush,trees bent beneath their own silence. The wind whispered names it had never spoken aloud.
And the figure walked through it all without leaving a single footprint.
Its thoughts were not loud. But they were there.
They fear him.
They shape him.
But what is a god, if not seen by the right eyes?
Its form shifted once — a shimmer, like a shadow remembering fire. Its smile wasn't visible. But it was felt.
Far away, under a sky no longer still, something turned.
In the rafters of the longhouse, a foxling's ear twitched.
And outside, where blackstone met grass, Valtor lifted his head, the faint taste of ash in the air brushing his senses like a warning returned — a familiar pressure, the weight of ash settling before the flame.