There are places where the stones remember.
Where voices linger, even after the blood has dried.
And in such places, a name is never just a name.
Blackstone Hold emerged from the mist like a memory carved in obsidian.
High towers twisted skyward, broken by time but unyielding in posture. The gates, forged of darkened steel, bore the sigil of the old empire — a wolf biting its own tail.
The guards didn't ask questions when Ash arrived.
They didn't need to.
They saw the eyes.
They saw the blood.
And they opened the gates.
Kael limped beside him, breathing heavily.
They had been riding for two days since the collapse of the catacombs — silent most of the way. Ash hadn't spoken once.
Not since the scream.
Not since the crown's echo burned into his mind.
But Kael felt it.
Something inside Ash had changed.
Not broken.
Not bent.
Just… colder.
A chamber was prepared.
Food was brought.
Servants dismissed.
Only when the doors shut behind them did Kael finally speak.
"You should've died in there."
Ash sat by the hearth, cloak still damp from the storm.
"I didn't."
Kael stepped closer, lowering his voice. "What did you see in that chamber? What touched you?"
Ash stared into the fire.
And then, quietly:
"It wasn't just a crown."
"It was a door."
Kael froze.
"What do you mean?"
Ash looked up, and for a moment, Kael saw something flicker behind his gaze — not fear.
Recognition.
"I think it was waiting for me."
That night, Ash stood alone atop the western rampart, looking out over the lands beyond Blackstone.
Villages, forests, mountains — distant and quiet.
But beneath it all, he could feel a pull.
Not just from the crown.
From her.
Seraphine.
The bond they shared — forged in a forgotten war, broken by silence — was stirring.
He didn't know where she was.
But he knew she was no longer sleeping.
And she would come.
Behind him, a voice broke the silence.
"You walk like a ghost."
Ash didn't turn.
"Only in places that remember the dead."
A woman stepped beside him, wrapped in a black coat lined with silver thread.
Lady Velra, spymaster of Blackstone.
"You've awakened something dangerous, Draven."
"I always do."
She smiled faintly.
"But this time, it's not just you the world is watching."
She handed him a scroll — wax seal broken, edges scorched by magical heat.
"The eastern scouts reported a flare in the Elderglen. Old flame magic — forgotten type. A woman walked into a rebel camp and beat down ten fighters without drawing her sword."
Ash opened the scroll.
His eyes scanned the symbol drawn there.
His fingers went still.
It was her blade.
Solmira.
Ash closed the scroll.
He breathed once.
Then whispered, more to himself than to Velra:
"She's awake."
Velra tilted her head. "An ally?"
Ash didn't answer.
Not because he didn't know.
But because… he did.
Below them, the watchmen changed shifts.
The wind picked up.
And the sky — cloudless, moonless — shivered.
Something old was moving across the land.
Something that remembered the first fall.
And it was coming for them all.