Not even matebonds.
Because the moment I forget that?
I’m not sure I make it out at all.
“Milady? It’s time,” Masha interrupts my spiral.
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
Chapter 5
Thorne
The Great Flame, Ashfell
I pace before the Great Flame.
The hearth dominates the throne room of Ashfell, a living column of fire rising from a pit of obsidian and ember-veined stone.
It has burned without ceasing since the Broken Plains were first settled, fed by the ore drawn from the depths.
The flame does not roar tonight.
It waits.
Like it already knows—and honestly? It probably does.
Midnight draws near.
I have summoned the ministers and elders of my domain—through Xavier, of course. He is far better at ceremony than I will ever be.
They gather in a wide semicircle around the Great Flame.
Forge-keepers with soot ground into their hands.
Flame-tenders whose brows bear the marks of ritual burns.
Sentinels scarred by claws, blades, and SoulTaker magic alike.
Not celebrants.
Witnesses.
They are here not merely to observe a vow, but to measure a risk—to decide whether tonight is salvation or folly.
The Ember Vein burns beneath us, deep and unseen, and I feel its pulse echoing through the stone like a second heart.
Their anxiety presses in on me from all sides, sharp as cinders caught in the lungs.
Grier Pyros breaks formation, pushing to the front of his brethren.
He smells of smoke and iron, desperation and something else. Something that feels like mutiny.
His beard singed short, eyes red-rimmed from too many nights without rest.
“My Lord Thorne,” he says, bowing just shallow enough to irritate me, “we await word of your plans to fortify the borderlands. Our miners toil night and day beneath the Plains. They are cut off from their families, unable to defend them—and the SoulTakers grow bolder with every passing cycle.”
A low murmur ripples through the crowd.
