All Chapters of Kingdom of Ash and Blood : Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

LUCA Dante came back like a ghost with a ledger. He arrived in the deepest hour of night, boots soft against the marble, cloak soaked from a sky that had learned to weep only in ruins. I met him in the low chapel — the place we went when we needed silence or absolution, which had recently been the same thing. He stood with the sort of exhausted grace men who’ve been in too many funerals develop. We both knew which one this would be. “You brought the paper,” I said. My voice sounded smaller than I meant it to. Dante nodded. He unrolled the leather-bound folio like a priest revealing a sacrament. Ink, old and thick, bloomed across its pages; the letters were a language both of blood and contracts — the language The Veil used when it wanted obedience more than power. “It’s called the Crossroads Pact,” he said. “Found it in a monastery outside Naples. The copy the Thirteen used to bind rivals when they wanted peace. It’s older than Don Moretti’s ledger. It predates our wars and t

AMARA Palermo slept like an open wound. The city never truly rested anymore — not since the raids, not since the bloodline wars turned into something more than street crime. The neon hummed low over Via Libertà, washing the rain-slicked roads in silver. Beneath that glow, I walked with a purpose that no longer needed guards or guns. I was the danger in this city; I was its quiet monarch. But even a queen needs a miracle. We had six days left before the Crossroads Pact expired. Six days before Dante’s ledger turned from salvation to execution paper. And we still had no witness. Mateo’s voice played in my head like an old confession: “There’s one who might fit your need, Reina de Huesos. A man who died twice — once in record, once in flesh. You’ll find him where the sea never forgets.” That meant only one place: the old monastery at San Vito Lo Capo — a ruin half-swallowed by the Mediterranean, now a graveyard for ghosts and smugglers. The Veil used to send their exiled b

Amara The dawn crawls in through smoke. The villa smells of blood and burnt gunpowder. Men are clearing bodies, dragging away twisted metal and shattered glass. The marble courtyard, once white, is now marred with streaks of red and black—an altar for the gods of revenge. I stand barefoot among it, my robe soaked, my hands trembling not from fear but from the quiet that comes after the chaos. The kind of quiet that screams louder than war. Luca is talking with Giovanni near the fountain—giving orders, securing borders, tightening every crack our enemies could slither through. His voice is low, commanding, terrifyingly calm. The kind of calm that means death is coming for whoever dared this. Matteo’s body lies covered by a tarp near the gate. I should feel relief. Instead, all I feel is the echo of betrayal. My cousin. My blood. I gave him a chance to live, and he sold us out to the Fiores. He sold me out. I close my eyes and inhale smoke, the taste of ash sittin

Luca Rome is silent tonight. The kind of silence that feels staged — like a breath held too long before a gunshot. We arrive just after midnight. The Montrelli palazzo sits on the edge of Trastevere, half-ruin, half-museum. Statues watch us from the balconies — faceless angels chipped and worn, eyes eaten out by time. Giovanni parks two blocks down. No lights, no guards, no signs of life. Too clean. “Feels like walking into a grave,” he mutters. I glance at Amara beside me. She’s dressed in black again — leather gloves, coat to her knees, her hair slicked back. No crown, but she doesn’t need one. The air bends around her anyway. “If this is a grave,” she says quietly, “then we dig out the ghost.” Her hand brushes mine for half a second before we move — weapons drawn, footsteps soft on marble. The front doors are unlocked. That’s when I know for sure: he’s waiting for us. Inside, the palazzo smells like old incense and burnt paper. Paintings hang crooked on the wal

AMARA Peace feels like a cage built of gold. Every wall in the rebuilt Moretti fortress gleams — ivory stone, black marble floors, chandeliers that catch the Sicilian sunrise like diamonds caught in firelight. The same palace that once smelled of gunpowder and blood now smells of roses. I hate it. I wake before dawn every morning. Not because I can’t sleep — but because silence unnerves me. There’s no more gunfire outside my window, no alarms, no Luca storming in with orders or maps of blood-red territories to reclaim. Only quiet. And quiet, I’ve learned, is how ghosts speak. The crown sits on the nightstand — obsidian metal carved with the Varela crest. I never wear it unless the cameras demand it. Power isn’t in what they see; it’s in who kneels. And lately, too many have been kneeling. Too easily. I stand before the mirror and adjust the cuff of my silk robe. Beneath the lace, scars run up my wrist — faded now, like forgotten battle lines. They used to remind me of who I