Rain washed the blood from the cobblestones, but it couldn't erase the sound.
Ash crouched behind a barrel near the spice market, soaked to the bone, watching a group of palace guards haul a boy into the open. The boy kicked and thrashed, a string of curses spilling from his mouth. One of the guards laughed and shoved him face-first into the mud.
"Wrong blood, wrong street," the guard said. "Should've known better."
Ash didn't move. He knew the boy—Tavin, a runner from the lower cisterns. Not a thief. Just poor. Just loud. Just forgettable enough to die without raising questions.
The others in the market had already turned their faces away. No one interfered. Not in Terenhold.
Ash slid his hand beneath his coat.
His fingers closed around a jagged shard of dark red crystal—warm, always warm, like a coal that never burned out.
The shard.
He hadn't meant to find it.
Hadn't meant to use it.
But now it called to him when things like this happened—when lies outweighed truth. When cruelty looked too much like law.
One of the guards unsheathed his sword.
Tavin screamed. Not from pain. From hope.
Ash moved.
He was already behind the first guard before he fully knew what he was doing. A spark jumped from his palm to the man's shoulder, then bloomed into sudden flame. The guard screamed and dropped, writhing, as fire licked across his armor. The second spun and slashed.
Too slow.
Ash ducked, twisted, and released another burst of heat—controlled, narrow, silent. A jet of white-hot flame struck the sword mid-blade, melted it in half, and sent the man staggering into the mud.
Both were down in seconds.
The rain hissed where it met fire, and steam curled like smoke off the cobblestones.
Ash exhaled.
The flame retreated—but not entirely. His blood still hummed.
Behind him, Tavin was already running.
Ash didn't follow.
He stood there in the alley, listening for more footsteps, but none came. Just the crackle of damp fire and the slow whisper of rain against stone.
---
By nightfall, Ash was back on the rooftop of the old bell tower.
From here, the city looked almost peaceful.
Terenhold stretched like a painting under stormlight—its white spires and golden domes veiled in mist, its lower streets lost beneath a blanket of smoke and shadow. The storm had passed, but the air still tasted of ash.
Ash sat with his knees drawn up, the shard resting in his palm. It glowed faintly, even now. Not bright. Just enough to remind him it was awake.
Alive.
Every time he used it, the power grew more responsive. Less like a tool. More like a presence. And it always left behind the same feeling: that someone, somewhere, had noticed.
He leaned back against the wall of the belfry and closed his eyes.
"You used it in public."
The voice came from the shadows behind him.
Ash didn't startle. He opened one eye and turned his head. A girl stood just beyond the rusted gears of the tower, wrapped in a long gray coat that looked like it had survived a fire. Her boots were wet. Her voice was calm. And her face… her face was wrong in a quiet way. Older than it should've been.
Ash watched her carefully. "You followed me?"
"I watched you burn two guards to death without hesitation," she said, stepping into the moonlight. "Following you seemed the smarter move."
"I didn't have a choice."
"Everyone says that. Just before they make the wrong one."
Ash sat up a little straighter. "Who are you?"
"Lira," she said. "I carry a shard too."
She held up a sliver of dark glass. Unlike his, it didn't glow with warmth—it shimmered cold, its surface reflecting nothing at all.
Ash frowned. "You're one of the Mirror-bound."
"Not quite," she said. "The Mirror doesn't bind. It reveals."
She came to the edge of the roof and sat beside him without asking.
For a while, they didn't speak. Below, bells rang through the city. Somewhere in the noble quarter, something had gone wrong—Ash could feel it in the air, the way dogs stopped barking, the way lights flickered for no reason.
"I've seen your face before," Lira said quietly.
Ash gave her a sharp look. "Doubt it."
"I don't mean here. I mean in the shard."
He didn't answer.
She went on. "You're not just some street orphan. You're tied to the Flame. The old one. The heart-shard. It woke when you touched it."
"I didn't ask for any of this."
"No one ever does," she said. "But the Queen is hunting the awakened. If you carry a shard, she'll find you."
Ash shook his head. "The Queen's dead."
"No," Lira said, voice suddenly flat. "She's waiting. And she remembers every piece of the Crown."
Ash looked down at the shard in his hand. It flickered once—faint, but sharp. As if reacting to her words.
He felt something stir in his chest.
Not fear.
Something older.
A memory he didn't have.
---
The bells stopped.
Wind stirred the rooftop tiles.
And then—across the sky, above the palace towers—a narrow flare of white light pierced the clouds.
Not lightning.
It didn't flash.
It held.
A column of silent, cold flame arcing into the heavens from the highest spire.
Ash stood slowly, eyes fixed on it.
Lira rose beside him.
"She knows," she said.
He didn't need to ask who.
He felt it too.
> The Queen of Sorrow had turned her gaze toward him.
And now the game had begun.