All Chapters of Blood ,Fire and Frost: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

 Selene POV:The first demand arrives as a petition.Wax-sealed, beautifully penned, respectful enough to make anger feel impolite. It’s delivered by a delegation of robed envoys who bow as if they’re offering reverence instead of obligation.“Your Majesty,” the lead envoy says, voice honey-smooth, “we come in the spirit of unity.”Unity, I’ve learned, is often a pretty word for obedience.Lucien stands a half-step behind my right shoulder, still as carved stone. Rowan is to my left, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the envoy like he’s deciding where to bury him.I take the parchment and skim.A request. A recommendation. A “framework.”They want a doctrine.They want me to define what’s allowed. What’s forbidden. Who may attempt bond resonance. Who must never.They want me to become the ruler of a thing I never meant to govern: intimacy as power.I fold the parchment slowly. “You

Rowan POV:I don’t like fighting things I can’t smell.Steel has a scent. Blood does. Even magic leaves tracks if you know how to read them. But whatever the Ash Queen is using sits wrong in my senses—muted, filtered, like the air after a storm when the ground hasn’t decided what it wants to be yet.Which means someone made it that way.Lucien and I don’t speak as we move through the outer districts again, this time under heavier cover. No veils. No soft bending of attention. Just shadows, timing, and patience. Selene stayed behind—not because she isn’t capable, but because this part needs to be done without her gravity warping the room.That alone tells me how serious this is.“You feel it too,” I murmur as we pass beneath a collapsed archway.Lucien nods once. “Yes.”“Good,” I growl. “Because if you told me I was imagining it, I was going to break something.”Lucien’s mouth curves faintly. “Your insti

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.

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

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