"In a land of ash and bone, the truest rebellion is to burn for another."
.....
The first flecks of ash fell without warning.
Soft.
Pale.
Wrong.
Not like soot from fire, nor dust from the broken ruins. These motes drifted in long, spiraling patterns—curling midair as if caught in invisible fingers. And they sang.
Not loudly.
Just barely—a kind of brittle hum, like glass under pressure.
Rein looked up.
The sky had no source.
No cloud. No burn. Just... ash.
"Zeraka?" he said.
The Beast Queen's hackles were already up.
Her claws unsheathed, tail lashing like a whip behind her. She didn't answer. Her nose twitched.
Her pupils thinned.
"This isn't mine," she said.
That alone was enough to make Valaithe sit upright, her playful posture gone.
"What kind of ash isn't yours?" Valaithe asked, brushing her fingers over the nearest fleck.
It didn't melt.
It stuck to her skin.
She flinched, shaking it off.
"The kind that remembers," Zeraka growled.
Elaris was already on her feet, sword unsheathed.
No flourish, no ceremony.
Just the bare edge of readiness.
Caelia stood too, slower.
She hadn't said a word in an hour. But now her lips moved—prayers without volume. Her eyes tracked the ash like it might bite.
And Iris—
Iris was smiling.
The kind of smile no one trusted.
"It's here," she whispered. "I told you it would come."
Rein took a step back from all of them.
From the ash.
From the whispers in Iris's throat.
But the ash followed.
Or rather—it avoided him.
It curled in a wide loop as it fell, forming a faint ring in the dirt at his feet.
Not touching him.
Not brushing him.
Avoiding him like the world knew something it shouldn't.
"Why is it doing that?" Rein asked, voice thin.
"Because it knows what you are," Iris said softly.
Zeraka bared her teeth.
"He's nothing."
"He's everything," Iris murmured, still watching the sky.
"He's mine," Zeraka snapped.
No one laughed.
The air was too thick for it.
A gust of wind blew—only there was no wind.
Just movement, invisible but heavy, pushing through them like a shifting tide.
Elaris stepped in front of Rein by instinct.
Valaithe moved to his left, her eyes shimmering.
"We shouldn't be here," Caelia muttered.
"We're not," Iris said. "This place isn't here anymore. It's waking."
Rein's mouth went dry.
He looked at his hands.
They were shaking.
He hadn't done anything. He hadn't asked for this. He just wanted out. Out of the prophecy. Out of the fighting. Out of whatever this was.
But the ash still looped around him.
Gentle.
Protective.
Possessive.
And for a terrifying moment—just a second—he wondered if it was whispering.
Not in words.
In memory.
"Why is this happening?" he whispered.
No one answered.
Except the sky.
It dropped another handful of ash.
And this time, it spelled his name.
Not written in letters.
Just arranged.
Falling.
Forming.
And all around him, the women stepped closer—not for protection.
But to claim what the world was reaching for.
__________
The ash pulled back from his steps like it feared him.
Rein didn't walk with purpose.
He walked like he was afraid to stop.
Behind him, no one spoke.
Even Zeraka—who never shut up—paced in silence.
Valaithe had stopped humming.
Her lips were still, and that terrified him more than anything else.
The air had changed. It wasn't just dry.
It was expectant.
Like the sky was holding its breath.
Then his foot hit something hard beneath the ash.
Stone. Flat.
Unnaturally smooth.
Not broken like ruin debris, but intentional.
Rein crouched, wiping the ash with his sleeve.
It smeared across a buried mural—lines cut so deep the stone still wept soot.
He uncovered more.
A throne—high and scorched, carved into rock as if someone burned it in.
And on that throne, a figure sat.
Crownless.
Bare-chested.
Hands bleeding.
The eyes were hollow.
But the face—
Rein's own face stared back at him.
He staggered to his feet, mouth dry.
"No. No, that's not me."
Zeraka squinted. "Could be any soft-skinned idiot in a chair."
"It's him," Valaithe said, quieter than usual.
She knelt, fingers ghosting over the lines.
"Look at the shoulders. The hair. The curve of his jaw. That's not a king. That's a sacrifice."
Rein backed away.
"I didn't ask for this," he whispered.
"Doesn't matter," Iris said from the edge of the stone.
Her voice didn't sound like hers.
"This was written before asking existed."
He turned to them, pleading.
"Don't you get it? This isn't fate. This is a trap."
Caelia's hand went to her blade.
"This is heresy," she hissed. "No mortal should be painted in divine positions."
Elaris stood between them without drawing.
Just watching.
Listening.
But her other hand was twitching—on reflex, near her hip.
Not fear.
Anticipation.
Rein turned back to the stone.
More ash had fallen.
It scattered in spirals, outlining another image beside the throne.
He wiped at it—faster now, almost frantic.
A second carving.
Smaller, but crueler.
Seven women, all kneeling, heads bowed in obedience.
Their crowns cracked.
Their eyes bleeding.
Their hands bound not by rope—but by veins of fire stretching out from the throne.
His throne.
And far behind them, towering over the skyline—the divine realms collapsing into flame.
Rein stared in horror.
He didn't move.
Couldn't.
"Why would someone draw this?" he asked.
"Because someone saw it," Iris said gently.
"And knew no one would believe them."
Valaithe stepped beside him again, brushing her hand across his back, nails feather-light.
"You look good in prophecy," she whispered.
"Even when you're breaking."
Zeraka said nothing.
She just kept staring.
Then—without warning—she strode forward and slammed her boot into the stone.
The impact cracked the carving.
"That throne?" she muttered.
"I'd burn it before I let you sit on it."
Rein flinched.
"Why?" he whispered.
"Because thrones kill what they crown," she growled.
"And I'm not watching you die for something you never wanted."
She didn't say another word.
But she stepped in front of the carving—blocking his view of it.
Like her body was the only wall between Rein and the future etched into stone.
And she didn't move.
Like she would stop him with her life, if that day ever came.
The day when he gets throned.