⸻
The palace reeked of decay.
Vex stepped through the shattered gates of Elaria's capital, her boots crunching over blackened debris and the charred bones of a dying regime. The banners that once bore the king's golden crest now hung in tatters, dripping ash. The great marble steps were cracked, bleeding rainwater like open wounds.
No fanfare greeted her. No soldiers barred her path.
There was no one left brave—or foolish—enough to stand between her and the end.
Her armor, scorched crimson and black from Agni's final battle, clung to her form like a second skin. A cloak of living shadow billowed behind her, stitched from the smoke of a thousand broken promises. The fire in her blood—the last ember of Agni—sang beneath her ribs, silent but fierce.
The Hollow murmured in her bones.
The world knew what was coming.
And it feared.
She crossed the empty courtyard, alone. No army marched at her back. No banners flew for her triumph.
She needed none.
Vex Rhiadne was the reckoning.
⸻
The throne room loomed ahead, its doors sagging on ruined hinges. She pushed them open with a thought; they groaned in protest, crumbling like brittle paper.
Inside, King Alaric cowered on the remains of his throne—a gilded monstrosity cracked down the center, just like the kingdom he had bled dry.
He saw her.
And smiled.
A wet, desperate thing.
"My lady," he croaked, voice thick with false familiarity. "My sweet girl. You've returned to us."
Vex said nothing.
She crossed the threshold, her every step ringing like a hammer on an anvil. Her gaze was a blade, cutting him down before she ever raised her hand.
Alaric scrambled to his feet, fat fingers grasping the arms of his throne. "All can be forgiven," he stammered. "We—we were misled. Lied to! I see that now. Come, take your rightful place. You are Elaria's true heir."
He gestured weakly to the crumbling hall. To the empty, hollowed-out shell of a kingdom he had gutted for his pride.
Still, Vex said nothing.
Instead, she reached out—palm open, fingers splayed—and curled her hand into a slow, deliberate fist.
The gilded throne groaned, metal warping under unseen pressure. With a savage shriek, it tore free from its foundations, dragged across the marble like a corpse dragged to a grave.
Alaric screamed and stumbled back.
Vex didn't even glance at him. She turned, dragging the twisted throne behind her, and hurled it through the shattered doors—sent it tumbling down the palace steps into the mud and ash.
A symbol.
A warning.
An end.
"You ruled from a seat built on lies," she said at last, her voice a low growl of embers.
"Let it rot with you."
Alaric fell to his knees, sniveling.
"My queen—please—I was misled—I—"
Vex stalked toward him, the blackened marble hissing beneath her boots.
No trial. No jury. No mercy.
She grabbed him by the front of his opulent, stained robes and lifted him as easily as one might lift a rat from the gutter. His breath wheezed in terror.
The fire in her blood surged forward, blooming through her fingers.
Agni's last gift.
Vex placed one burning hand over his chest, directly over the greedy, treacherous heart that had bought and sold her life.
Alaric tried to scream.
He didn't make it.
The fire blossomed inside him—silent, devouring. His eyes bulged. His body convulsed. Smoke poured from his mouth, his nostrils, his ears. And then, with a sickening crack, his ribs split open from within as his heart burst into cinders.
She let his corpse fall at her feet.
Ash drifted around her like falling snow.
"You built your kingdom on my grave," Vex whispered into the silence.
"Now you'll rot beneath it."
⸻
They came then—the courtiers, the nobles, the worms who had once whispered her downfall into existence.
They entered the throne room and froze.
They saw her standing amid the ruins, bloodied and unbowed, smoke curling from her fingertips.
One by one, they dropped to their knees.
Not out of loyalty.
Not out of love.
But because they knew.
They lived because she allowed it.
They knelt because to stand was death.
⸻
Rhydir appeared in the doorway, silent as a shadow.
He didn't rush to her side. He didn't speak.
He simply watched.
Watched the blood on her hands, the fire still crackling in her wake, the ruin she had wrought—and the unbreakable strength she wore like a crown.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he knelt.
Not because he feared her.
Because he loved her enough to respect the storm she had become.
"Long may she reign," Rhydir said, his voice cutting through the stunned silence.
"Or burn us all if we fail her again."
His silver hair, usually tied back in sleek warrior's braids, fell loose around his face—wild, unruly, free.
The sight of it—his defiance, his loyalty—broke something fierce and tender open inside her.
For a single breath, Vex closed her eyes.
And when she opened them again, she saw not just blood and ruin—but possibility.
⸻
They offered her the crown.
The nobles groveled at her feet, weeping, begging.
"Take the throne," they cried.
"Restore the kingdom."
"Lead us."
She looked down at the glittering crown they held out to her—stained now, like everything else.
She could take it.
She could rule.
She could turn Elaria into an empire of ash and fear—and no one would dare lift a finger against her.
But Vex Rhiadne smiled—small, sharp, and merciless.
And she turned her back on them all.
⸻
Outside the palace ruins, the wind howled.
Rhydir rose and fell into step beside her, his presence a steady, anchoring heat at her side.
They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
The world behind them burned.
The world ahead of them belonged to them alone.
"We'll build something better," Vex murmured, not to the nobles, not to the cowards—
but to the man who had chosen her fire over the world's favor.
Rhydir grinned—a slow, wicked thing.
"Let them choke on their ashes, my queen."
And together, they walked into a future forged by their own hands.
Not crowned.
Not chained.
Free.