Snow drifted silently in the ruins of Ghal'Sevrin.
Not the cold death of winter—but the hush that follows when something ancient has died and the world doesn't yet know how to breathe again.
Valen stood atop the shattered pedestal where the Eighth Throne had once hovered. No flame. No crown. Just cracked stone and a wind that whispered in a thousand forgotten tongues.
He clutched the Chronicle in one hand, the weight of it heavier than any sword.
Dhera watched him with wary eyes.
"Something's wrong," she murmured. "The book shouldn't still be pulsing."
Valen didn't answer.
He could feel it, too.
Lyra remained unconscious, curled beside the broken lake of memories.
Her breath was steady, but faint. Her body glowed with soft emberlight—traces of the Crimson Mark still burning in her veins.
Dhera knelt beside her, checking her pulse, her spirit threads, her memory anchors.
"She's stable, but... changed," the scholar said.
Valen didn't move.
He stared into the lake—its surface now rippling with stillness, but beneath it lay images: of other thrones, other kings, and deeper still—
A shadow that had not yet risen.
"What did Lazarin awaken?" Valen finally asked.
Dhera froze.
"That throne wasn't a seat of rule. It was a seal."
She turned to face him fully now, eyes wide with realization.
"He wasn't trying to claim the Eighth Throne."
"He was trying to break it."
Valen's jaw tightened.
"Then what's been released?"
Dhera swallowed.
"I think... something older than any of the Twelve Thrones."
"Something the others tried to erase."
They left the lake by midday.
Each step away felt like pulling against a tide of memory. The Chronicle grew heavier the further they went—as if it, too, resisted their escape.
Valen carried Lyra in his arms, her weight light but steady. Her skin was warm with emberlight, and the crimson sigil on her back had faded into a scar.
She stirred once, in half-consciousness.
Her lips moved.
Valen leaned close.
She whispered one word:
"Ashara."
He frowned. "Who's Ashara?"
But she didn't answer.
She slipped back into sleep, face pale.
And far behind them, the cracked lake shimmered—once.
Then stilled.
They reached the edge of the Kharvek Chasm by dusk.
The wind was sharper here.
Colder.
Not natural cold—but memory's chill.
Dhera paused, studying the stone around them. Her fingers touched a broken monolith carved with glyphs too ancient for the Chronicle to translate.
"These aren't Court markings," she said. "They predate the War of Names."
Valen stared at them. Somehow, they felt... familiar.
"Why do I recognize this script?" he asked.
Dhera's lips thinned. "Because it's older than bloodlines. Older than the first cities. It's written in Primordial. The tongue of the gods."
He shook his head.
"That can't be possible."
And yet—
He could read it.
"The Thronebreaker must fall."
That night, Valen dreamt.
Or perhaps he remembered.
He stood atop a mountain of ash. The sky was a wheel of black suns. Around him—thrones shattered, kings impaled, and gods bound in chains of silence.
At the center of the storm was himself.
But not as he was now.
Taller.
Eyes silver-black.
A crown of no shape hovered above his head.
And at his feet, Lyra knelt.
Not as she was now—but marked with symbols of the old world.
A priestess?
No—
A warden.
She looked up at him and said:
"You broke the chain, Valen."
"Now you must become it."
He awoke with a gasp.
Cold sweat. Bleeding palms.
The Chronicle lay beside him, open to a new page.
Not written by Dhera.
Not scribed by any hand.
Just a single line burned in crimson script:
"Ashara is waking."
Dhera didn't need to ask what he saw. The look on his face was enough.
"We need answers," she said. "More than the Chronicle can give."
Valen nodded.
"Then we go to the Forgotten Archives."
Dhera blinked. "That place is sealed by the Arch-Court. No one alive has entered it in over four hundred years."
"I'm not alive," Valen replied quietly.
She didn't argue.
By morning, Lyra was walking again, weak but alert.
She didn't speak of her dream.
But when Valen mentioned the word Ashara, her entire body stiffened.
"That name... It was never meant to be remembered."
Dhera turned sharply. "You know who it is?"
Lyra nodded slowly.
Her voice trembled.
"Ashara was not a king. Not a god. Not a memory."
"She was the one before memory."
"She is the reason the Chronicle exists."
Valen's hand tightened on the hilt of Sorrowfang.
"Then Lazarin didn't just unchain a throne."
"He woke something that wrote the world."
That night, as they camped beneath the old storm-walls, the black crown flame returned to the sky.
But this time it did not remain still.
It moved.
Slowly.
Southward.
Toward the Cradle of Names.
Toward the place where all thrones were once forged.
Toward the city Valen had sworn never to return to.
Elarion.
His birthplace.
His grave.
And the home of the final truth.