There were screams in the stone.
Not from the living—but from the bones of the chamber itself. Echoes of power too ancient to tame, too sacred to forget. The throne had awakened, and with it, something neither mortal nor beast had any right to touch.
Magdalene rose slowly, her hands bloodied from the impact, her breath jagged with smoke and fury.
"Maddox!"
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
The white fire in his eyes had not dimmed. He sat rigid on the Echo Throne, shoulders taut, hands clenched on the armrests as if welded there. Power crackled off him in erratic pulses, gilded veins searing through his skin like molten threads. The glyphs had branded him—permanently.
"Maddox, look at me," she said, staggering toward him, stumbling over the broken sigils that still hummed beneath her boots.
Cassian groaned somewhere behind her, but he didn't rise.
Everything narrowed to this—this ruin of a king glowing like a fallen god.
And then—he moved.
Barely.
His head tilted toward her, slow and trembling, like he was dragging every ounce of will through a body no longer his own. But his voice… gods, his voice was wrong.
"Magdalene…" It wasn't a whisper. It was a chorus—his voice layered with another. Older. Colder. Divine.
She froze. "What's happening to you?"
"I—I don't know," he breathed. "I feel… everything. The land. The wolves. The Pact. All of it." His hands flexed, and the throne responded like a living thing, pulsing once beneath him.
She reached for him—but stopped inches away. The heat radiating off his skin was unholy.
"You have to get off that throne," she whispered.
"I can't," he said, and his jaw locked with pain. "It won't let me."
And suddenly, Magdalene understood the truth Seravelle had left unsaid.
This throne was no seat of judgment.
It was a prison.
A vessel.
It chose.
"You said you'd trust me," Maddox said hoarsely, his voice cracking through the divine undertone. "You have to trust me now."
"I do," she said. "But not like this. This isn't you. This is the throne deciding for you."
He winced. "And what if I was always meant for this?"
"No one is meant to burn for power," she snapped. "We tear it down or we die trying—but we don't let it take you."
The sound of bootfalls tore through the silence.
The enemy had arrived.
From the corridor came a flood of soldiers—black-armored, armed with silverfire torches and shock-laced blades. The sigils on their helmets marked them as loyal to House Vale—but not to Maddox. Not anymore.
Rebels. Loyalists. Royal Guard. It no longer mattered. Chaos had reached the Echo Throne.
Magdalene turned to face them, heart thundering.
Cassian tried to sit up, coughing. "We have to hold them."
"No," she said, summoning the blade from her thigh sheath, fire in her veins. "We end them."
-
The first wave of soldiers surged forward.
And the throne—reacted.
Maddox's body tensed. His eyes flared white-hot. And then—he stood.
The Echo Throne did not resist him. It unleashed him.
The soldiers halted mid-charge. Every torch dimmed. The air itself bent.
And Magdalene saw what Seravelle meant.
This wasn't just Maddox.
This was the reckoning.
He stepped forward, flames coiling behind his heels. His voice rang across the chamber like a weapon: "You come to steal a throne that does not belong to you. You bring silver to wolves. Fire to stone. Betrayal to blood."
The commander of the rebel unit—a wolf-marked man with ash-blond braids—scoffed. "You're no king anymore, Vale. You sit on a throne of ghosts."
"Then let me show you what the dead remember."
Maddox raised one hand.
The floor erupted.
Glyphs shattered. Stone buckled. A wave of power surged outward, catching the first line of soldiers and slamming them into the walls like insects. Fire didn't burn from him—it obeyed him, wrapping around his limbs like living chains, branding the air with the scent of molten metal and fate.
Magdalene stood frozen as Maddox advanced through smoke and ruin, his steps almost ethereal. His voice, low and resonant, reached her:
"Leave. Or kneel."
The remaining soldiers faltered, their bravado stripped bare.
But the commander lunged.
Fool.
He didn't make it three steps before a blade of light tore through his chest—summoned by Maddox's bare hand. The man crumpled without a sound.
Silence fell again.
The rest ran.
Fled in terror.
Maddox exhaled slowly. The flames receded. His eyes dimmed—from white fire back to gold.
And then he collapsed.
Magdalene caught him before his head hit stone.
He was burning up.
"Maddox—hey, hey, look at me." Her hands cradled his face, ignoring the heat. "Come back to me. Don't you dare leave now."
His eyelids fluttered.
"I'm still here," he rasped. "But the throne… it's inside me. It won't let go."
"Then we'll tear it out," she said fiercely.
His hand found hers, fingers lacing weakly. "It wants to crown me. It thinks I'm the one."
"You're not," she said softly.
His eyes opened. "I'm not?"
She cupped his jaw, her voice shaking. "You're the one I chose. That throne can go to hell."
He gave the faintest smile, then winced. "Cassian… is he—?"
"Alive," came a voice from behind them.
Cassian limped toward them, bleeding from the temple but standing.
"We need to move. That was just the first wave. If they followed us this far, the entire mountain's compromised."
Magdalene nodded. "We go back through the ruins. The northern pass."
Cassian's eyes flicked to Maddox. "Can he walk?"
Maddox growled softly. "I can fly if I have to."
She smirked, relief bleeding through her exhaustion. "Try walking first, wolf."
He stood with her help. The fire was gone—but the throne had changed him. Not broken. Not consumed.
Changed.
Magdalene knew then: this wasn't the end of their story.
It was the beginning of a war.
And they would face it together.
As ruin.
And crown.
As wolf.
And daughter.