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Chapter Twenty-Seven
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2026-01-09 03:48:58Selene POV:
Dawn does not arrive gently.It comes sharp and pale, slicing the city out of night like a blade drawn too quickly. I’m already awake when the first runner reaches the citadel, breath tearing in his throat, eyes wide with the kind of fear that doesn’t know how to be quiet.“Your Majesty,” he gasps. “The border glow… it collapsed.”I don’t flinch.I listen.The Axis hums beneath my ribs, low and alert, like it’s been waiting for confirmation.“How many?” I ask.The runner swallows hard. “No deaths. But… dozens are sick. They’re… different. Like they’re sedated. They can’t focus. Some can’t remember why they went outside.”Rowan’s growl is instant, a sound that belongs to the wolf more than the man. Lucien’s expression doesn’t change, but the temperature in the room drops a fraction.“Bring me everything,” Lucien says, voice calm but lethal. “Names. Symptoms. Timeline. Who administere
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Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Thirty
Selene POV:The first child collapses at midmorning.Not in the city.Not under our eyes.In a river village three days’ ride north, where the Accord is still only a name spoken carefully, where people learned about the ash rituals secondhand and thought they were being careful by adapting them slowly.A boy. Nine years old. Bright. Stubborn. Too curious for his own good, according to the healer who sends the report with shaking hands.“He was never part of the ritual,” the healer writes. “But his mother was.”My breath goes shallow.Lucien reads over my shoulder, silent. Rowan stands across the chamber, still as a drawn bow.“What kind of collapse?” I ask quietly.Lucien answers. “Secondary resonance dampening. Proximity bleed.”I close my eyes.The Axis hums—not alarmed, not panicked. Heavy. Like it knows this moment matters.“So this is it,” Rowan says hoarsely. “T
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Nine
Selene POV:After exposure comes vacuum.The forum empties, the ash is washed away, and the city exhales—but what’s left behind isn’t peace. It’s space. A hollow where certainty used to sit. People return to their homes carrying questions instead of answers, and questions are heavier than fear if you don’t know where to set them down.That’s when fractures form.Reports arrive before nightfall. Not riots. Not devotion. Interpretations.In the western wards, a speaker declares the Ash Queen a martyr to truth. In the south, a healer claims the Queen’s refusal to regulate proves she doesn’t care about common suffering. In the river quarter, people quietly dismantle ash symbols and ask where they can learn the Accord’s methods.Three reactions. One city.The Axis hums, complex and layered, like it’s mapping the divergence.“This is worse than opposition,” Rowan says grimly as we stand over the council table littered
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Eight
Selene POV:Noon arrives like a held blade finally dropping.The forum is packed beyond its stone tiers now, bodies pressed close, heat rising from skin and fear and anticipation. Ash-gray banners ripple at the far end of the square, carried by attendants who move with rehearsed calm. Candles are already lit despite the sun, their smoke curling upward in thin, deliberate lines.The Ash Queen steps into the open.She is composed, radiant in that careful way that reads as benevolence when people are desperate. Her crown of charred wood has been polished since last night, the ash symbol above her altar refined, brighter, steadier. She lifts her hands, and the crowd responds instinctively, sound collapsing into silence.Relief has a posture.I feel the Axis hum deepen, not with hunger, not with threat, but with attention sharpened to a blade’s edge. It recognizes a pivot point.The Ash Queen speaks as if she is offering wate
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Seven
Selene POV:Dawn does not arrive gently.It comes sharp and pale, slicing the city out of night like a blade drawn too quickly. I’m already awake when the first runner reaches the citadel, breath tearing in his throat, eyes wide with the kind of fear that doesn’t know how to be quiet.“Your Majesty,” he gasps. “The border glow… it collapsed.”I don’t flinch.I listen.The Axis hums beneath my ribs, low and alert, like it’s been waiting for confirmation.“How many?” I ask.The runner swallows hard. “No deaths. But… dozens are sick. They’re… different. Like they’re sedated. They can’t focus. Some can’t remember why they went outside.”Rowan’s growl is instant, a sound that belongs to the wolf more than the man. Lucien’s expression doesn’t change, but the temperature in the room drops a fraction.“Bring me everything,” Lucien says, voice calm but lethal. “Names. Symptoms. Timeline. Who administere
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Six
Selene POV:The demonstration is not meant to impress.That is the first rule I give the Accord when they ask how public this needs to be. No banners. No invocations. No ritual language that promises safety like a charm spoken over a wound. What we are building cannot survive on awe.It has to survive scrutiny.We choose a place that has never loved me unconditionally: the river forum on the city’s edge, where traders argue louder than priests and rumors travel faster than truth. The stone tiers curve down toward the water, scarred with old scorch marks from riots long forgotten and protests that never truly ended.Neutral ground.The Axis hums softly beneath my ribs as I stand at the forum’s center, hands empty, cloak plain. Rowan is visible by design, stationed at the lower steps where trouble tends to ferment. Lucien remains near the arches, half in shadow, half in sight. Neither of them looks ceremonial. Both look ready.
Blood ,Fire and Frost Chapter Twenty-Five
Selene POV:We don’t announce the council.We build it.That distinction matters.If I proclaim a solution, it becomes another doctrine, another mouth waiting to be fed certainty. Instead, I authorize the framework quietly, letting it grow outward from necessity rather than decree. Ward-mages, healers, scholars, and regional representatives begin meeting under a name Lucien chose carefully:The Accord of Autonomy.Not a law.Not a church.An agreement.I sit in on the first gathering without crown or title, just Selene, listening while people argue about thresholds, safeguards, and the difference between consent and compulsion. It’s messy. Slow. Frustrating.Perfect.“This won’t stop everyone,” a healer says, hands stained with ink and herbs. “Some people will still try to force power.”“I know,” I reply. “This isn’t about stopping choice. It’s about making informed choice har
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