The storm broke before dawn.
Ash stood alone in the clocktower's upper rafters, a narrow pane of cracked glass between him and the dark city beyond. Rain streaked the rooftops below, softening the edges of Terenhold into shadows and smudged gold. From up here, the city looked peaceful.
But he could feel the change. The air was too still. The kind of stillness that comes before a fire finds its name.
He stared at the shard in his palm.
It didn't glow in the usual way tonight. It pulsed, quietly, like a breath drawn and held. It was waiting.
"I know you're not asleep," came Lira's voice from behind.
Ash turned slightly but didn't look back. "Neither are you."
Lira stepped out of the shadows, her boots soft on the ancient wooden beams. The rain had soaked her coat and hair, and steam drifted faintly from her shoulders as the warmth of her shard dried it faster than time should allow.
She sat down beside him. Not too close. Not too far.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The silence was shared, not awkward.
Lira finally broke it. "You felt the light, didn't you?"
Ash nodded once. "Over the palace. It wasn't natural."
"No. It was another awakening."
"Another shard?"
"Worse," she said. "An old one. It felt like Sovereignty. Or Hollow."
Ash clenched the crystal in his hand.
His shard—the Flame—responded to truth and illusion. But the other paths… he didn't understand them. Lira did. She carried one.
"What do you know about the others?" he asked.
"Enough to be afraid of them," she said. "And enough to know the Queen is searching faster now. That signal—it wasn't just a flare. It was a summons."
Ash frowned. "For who?"
"For us."
---
By midmorning, the streets of Terenhold had changed.
Ash and Lira moved through the shadows of the lower quarter, keeping to alleyways, vaulting between rooftops, slipping through the ribcage of the city like ghosts. The market was still open, but quieter. Too quiet.
The guards had doubled—black-armored men with sunburst helms, heavy spears, and eyes that didn't drift. Not patrolmen. Not mercenaries. These were Seekers.
Lira whispered under her breath, "They're not just searching for the shard bearers."
"What, then?"
"They're testing the wards," she said. "Terenhold's heartbeat is changing. The Crown is shifting. The Queen's magic is twisting the lines beneath the city."
Ash looked down at the cobbled stone under their feet. The roads pulsed faintly in his vision—just for a moment. A shimmer of heat. Not fire. Something deeper. Old.
"How long has she been working from inside the city?" he asked.
Lira's eyes were distant. "Since before the last king died. She never truly left."
---
They took shelter in an old foundry tucked into the bones of the south quarter.
Ash had stayed here before—a forgotten place of melted tools and broken furnaces, where the scent of iron still clung to the stone. They cleared a corner and lit a small fire with magic, not spark. Lira hung her soaked coat over a pipe. Ash leaned against the wall and let the shard warm his fingers.
The silence held again, but this time, it was heavier.
Finally, he spoke. "When did you find your shard?"
"I didn't," she said, her voice flat. "It found me."
He waited.
She sat cross-legged across from him and ran a finger over the mirrored sliver in her palm.
"I was raised by the Hollow Flame," she said. "A cult that believed the Crown was never meant to be whole again. They worshiped the break. The silence."
Ash had heard whispers of them. Murderers. Seers. Mad prophets.
"Did they make you carry it?"
"No," she said. "They tried to feed it to me."
His eyes widened.
She didn't elaborate.
"I ran. Took it with me. Been hunted ever since."
Ash looked down at his own shard.
"I didn't even believe in this stuff. Not really. Just thought it was a relic. Sold scrap. Then I touched it."
Lira's gaze sharpened. "And what did it show you?"
Ash swallowed. "A woman with no face… standing in a hall of thrones that weren't empty, but… dead. And a city burning. This city."
Lira nodded. "The Queen of Sorrow's visions always begin the same."
He looked up. "So she's real?"
"She's worse than real," Lira said. "She remembers everything the Crown forgot."
---
That night, they lit no fire.
Ash couldn't sleep. Not just because of the cold.
The shard whispered now.
Not in words, but images. Flashes.
A child in chains. A throne of bone. A hand reaching across fire—and pulling back something not human.
Then silence.
He sat upright, breathing hard.
Across the foundry, Lira stirred. "Another vision?"
He nodded.
"I saw... someone. A boy. No older than me. With a shard like mine."
She was already sitting up. "Did he speak?"
"No. But the fire around him—it wasn't fire. It was him."
Lira stood and crossed to the makeshift map she'd drawn on the wall with ash. "The Flame always comes first," she murmured. "The other shards stir to balance it. Or to smother it."
Ash stood beside her.
"There's more coming, isn't there?"
"Yes," she said. "And not all of them are waking to resist the Queen."
---
As dawn cracked the horizon, casting gold through the foundry's broken beams, Ash stepped outside.
The sky over the palace was still faintly glowing.
A streak of white fire stretched from the highest tower into the clouds. It hadn't faded.
Lira joined him.
"She knows," she whispered.
Ash didn't ask who.
He already knew.
> The Queen of Sorrow had felt his flame.
And now, she was watching.