All Chapters of The Crown Of Ash and Silver: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The reliquary passage smelled of candle wax and rain-soaked stone. The walls curved in silence, carved with prayers that had lost their faith centuries ago. Each word had been gilded once, but time and fear had scraped the gold away.Lucien walked ahead, holding a single lantern. The light wavered against his sleeve as if reluctant to follow. Behind him, Seraphina kept her steps quiet, her silver hair catching glimmers of the flame. The corridor turned sharply, leading down a stair that opened into the cloister.The air changed. Warmer. Drier. It smelled faintly of ink and dust. Endless shelves lined the walls, filled with scrolls and leather-bound tomes, each marked with the Church’s sigil. Between them stood old statues—saints, martyrs, scholars—all facing inward toward a marble fountain that no longer flowed.

Dawn came softly, wrapped in mist.The storm had passed, leaving the world pale and still. The air smelled of wet stone and ash. High in the foothills beyond Valoria, the ruins of the old monastery stood like the bones of a forgotten god, its towers cracked, its gardens drowned in ivy.Seraphina stood at the courtyard’s edge, watching the sunrise bleed through the fog. The light caught her hair and turned it almost white. Her reflection shimmered faintly in the puddles left by the rain.Lucien approached quietly, cloak heavy with dew. “You didn’t sleep.”She glanced over her shoulder. “Neither did you.”He stopped beside her. “Hard to, when the world’s hunting you.”

Lucien watched the monastery courtyard in silence, the air thick with the smell of burnt incense and old stone. The snow had melted under the heat of the divine sigil carved into the ground, leaving the earth blackened and cracked. The monks’ bodies had long been carried away, but their presence lingered like smoke that refused to fade. The sky above was pale and cold, a thin wash of color that made the ruined walls look older than time itself.He had spent hours among the ruins, helping the priests sift through what remained. The Church called it purification. He called it silence dressed in holiness.When the others finally left, Lucien stayed behind.The courtyard was quiet now, except for the faint sound of wind through the trees. He walked to the center of the sigil, his boots leaving shallow prints in the soot. The air still hummed faintly with power, as if the stones themselves remembered what had been done. Fragments of charred parchment clung to the edges of the well, and a s

The valley had grown quieter each morning. Mist clung to the edges of the monastery, soft as breath, and the world seemed to hold itself still, waiting.Seraphina stood at the broken window of the western hall, watching the horizon. The early sun barely touched the valley, its gold dimmed by veils of cloud. The forest below stirred only when the wind passed through it, and even then, the sound was subdued, uncertain.“The bells aren’t for prayer,” she said softly. “They’re calling.”Lucien paused where he stood, near the altar they had half repaired. “Calling what?”Her gaze stayed on the distant spires of Valoria. “Something that shouldn’t have woken.”A pulse built behind her eyes, slow and deep, like a second heartbeat trying to find rhythm with her own. She pressed a hand against her temple, but the ache only grew sharper. Her mark burned beneath her glove, light seeping through the fabric like silver veins beneath skin.Lucien stepped closer. “Seraphina?”She didn’t answer. The

Sleep came slowly that night.At first there was only warmth, the slow rhythm of light moving through her veins.Then it changed.The warmth cooled, the air thinned. She felt herself drifting downward, through gold that turned to shadow.She stood in a hall washed in candlelight. Music played somewhere distant, distorted by the heavy air. Perfume and wine. Laughter that ended too quickly.Two goblets on a table, one dark, one pale. A hand. Hers? Lifted one of them, the rim gleaming red in the light.She drank the liquid in the goblet and the world paused.The taste curdled. Whispers began to spread through the gathered crowd.Someone shouted her sister’s name.Faces blurred. The floor tipped. Voices merged into a tide of disbelief and accusation.Poison.Her own blood.The Light will judge.The sound fractured into silence.Rain replaced the music.Stone corridors stretched around her, dripping and cold. Chains clinked somewhere close.She glimpsed a woman kneeling by a narrow window.