Chapter 60

The night sky burned crimson as fires spread across the palace grounds, smoke twisting upward in choking plumes that blotted out the stars. Serenya stood at the edge of the shattered hall, her breath shallow, her heart a frantic drum in her chest. The throne room—once the sanctum of her ancestors—was reduced to ruin. Stone pillars lay cracked, tapestries smoldered in heaps of blackened fabric, and the seat of power itself, the High Throne of Valeor, leaned crookedly, a fractured shadow of what it had once been.

She had dreamed of this moment for years—the day she might walk openly into the hall as the rightful heir. But she had never imagined this: her crown covered in soot, her kingdom falling apart around her.

“Serenya!” Kaelen’s voice cut through the chaos, pulling her from the dark haze threatening to consume her. He stumbled through the broken archway, his sword dark with ash, his cloak torn. “We must go. Now.”

Her lips trembled, torn between grief and rage. “If we leave now, Kaelen, all that remains of Valeor dies with us.”

“All that remains,” he said sharply, taking her shoulders, “is you. The throne can be rebuilt. The kingdom can be reborn. But not if its last heiress burns with the embers.”

His eyes locked on hers—steel and sorrow—and for a heartbeat, Serenya almost yielded. But her gaze drifted past him, to the throne still standing amidst the ruin. And she saw it differently: not as a seat of triumph, but as a symbol of everything broken. Of her father’s silence, her mother’s sacrifice, the generations of secrets that had left her hidden in shadows. Perhaps the throne did not need to be rebuilt. Perhaps it needed to end.

Footsteps thundered on the marble, sharp and purposeful. Darian Crestfall emerged from the smoke, his armor dented, blood running down one arm. His loyalty had always been a tether between them—knight to heir, friend to heart—but tonight his face was hard, unreadable.

“You cannot stay,” he said, echoing Kaelen, but his tone was colder. “The Duke’s forces are regrouping. Thalric Veynor is not finished—not yet.”

“Then neither am I.” Serenya’s voice cracked with defiance. She stepped toward the broken throne, her gown trailing across ashes. “If Thalric means to claim this seat, he will sit upon nothing but ruin.”

Kaelen cursed under his breath, but Darian’s eyes flickered strangely—admiration, or perhaps sorrow she could not name. “You would destroy it?” he asked softly. “Even though it is your birthright?”

“My birthright was stolen long before tonight.” She touched the charred armrest, the cold stone crumbling beneath her fingertips. “If power has done nothing but breed betrayal and blood, then let the ashes be my legacy instead.”

The chamber quaked suddenly as a blast echoed through the halls. Flames surged higher, carrying with them the acrid stench of oil. Serenya reeled back, coughing. From the shadows, Cyrion Duskbane appeared, dragging his limp leg, his dark cloak shredded. His eyes—those strange, star-silver orbs—met Serenya’s, unreadable.

“This is what he wanted,” Cyrion rasped. “Veynor does not care for crowns or thrones. He wants a kingdom so broken no one can rule it but him. If you burn it all, Serenya, you give him victory.”

Her heart lurched. Could it be true? Was she about to destroy not Veynor’s ambition, but the very hope of her people? She staggered, torn between the voices surrounding her—Kaelen urging flight, Darian caught between loyalty and grief, Cyrion warning her of a greater trap. Her mind swirled with too many truths, too many betrayals.

From the far wall, a shadow stirred, and Eloria Thorne emerged. Her rival. Her reflection in ambition and fire. Clad in scarlet armor, her braid undone, Eloria’s smile was grim. “How poetic,” she said. “The throne in ruins, the heiress in ashes. Do you not see, Serenya? This is our chance. Together, we could rebuild—not for Veynor, not for your ancestors, but for us.”

Serenya’s chest tightened. How many times had she imagined Eloria as her enemy? And yet now, with the throne crumbling behind her, she saw something else: a mirror of herself, another young woman caught in webs of destiny, desperate for control of her own fate.

“Why would you help me?” Serenya asked, her voice thin against the roaring fire.

Eloria’s smile wavered. “Because I am tired of fighting for scraps of power handed down by men who see us only as pawns. You are not my enemy, Serenya. Not truly. But if you cling to the throne, if you rebuild it, then we will be.”

The room tilted, every word pulling Serenya deeper into the storm. Betrayal pressed at every side, yet so too did possibility. Her crown weighed like fire in her hair, though it was no more than soot and blood.

“Choose,” Darian said, his voice breaking for the first time. “Before the flames do it for you.”

Silence fell. The fires crackled, the air thick with smoke. Serenya’s hand trembled as she reached for the broken throne, her palm pressing into its shattered crown. The stone split beneath her touch, collapsing in a cloud of dust. Gasps rippled from those who watched.

“I choose neither crown nor ashes,” she whispered. “If a kingdom is to rise again, it will not be on this throne. It will be on truth. On unity. On love that cannot be chained.”

Her words carried through the ruin, fierce even as her voice shook. Kaelen stepped to her side, his hand brushing hers with a silent vow. Darian bowed his head, though tears glistened in his eyes. Cyrion watched with that strange, knowing gaze, as if he saw a path none of them yet understood. Eloria lingered, caught between admiration and envy, her scarlet armor reflecting the firelight.

And then the great hall shook once more.

The northern wall caved inward, stone raining down. Through the smoke, Duke Thalric Veynor entered, flanked by soldiers clad in his dark crest. His voice was a blade. “And so the heiress chooses ruin.” His eyes, black as pitch, swept the room. “Good. It will make your fall swifter.”

Kaelen drew his sword at once, stepping forward. Darian raised his shield, battered though it was. Cyrion’s hands glowed faintly, some shadowed magic stirring. Eloria’s blade hissed free, though her eyes flicked toward Serenya, still undecided.

The throne lay in rubble between them all—a symbol, destroyed. Yet in that destruction, Serenya felt something rise. A freedom she had never known. Her throne no longer chained her. She was no longer bound to shadow or crown.

“Then let us meet in the ashes,” she said, stepping forward, her voice steady now. “And see which of us truly burns.”

The hall erupted in chaos as steel clashed, fire roared, and the final battle for Valeor began—not over the throne, but over the heart of a kingdom reborn from ashes.