The air was sharp with ash.
Snowflakes melted as they touched the blood-soaked ground. Crimson Hollow had survived, but it was no longer a place of refuge — it was a graveyard of dreams and burned-out oaths.
Jayden walked among the fallen, his coat torn, his sword stained, eyes empty.
Beside him, Maggy said nothing.
No words would do justice to what they had seen. What they had lost.
Behind them, Mira lit pyres, chanting old tongue songs for the dead. The melodies bent with sorrow, floating between the dying buildings like memories that refused to vanish.
> "This place was once holy," Maggy whispered.
> "It still is," Jayden replied, kneeling to press two fingers to Callum's discarded dagger.
> "Holiness isn't the absence of blood. It's the presence of meaning."
---
Jayden summoned the council in what remained of the chapel.
Mira, injured but resolute.
Linet, quiet, with her arm in a sling.
Aria, breathing shallowly, eyes dulled by poison.
Only Jeff's seat remained empty.
> "We march," Jayden declared, voice like thunder. "To Solmar. The Crown War begins."
> "Solmar is a trap," Mira argued. "A nest of kings who wear smiles like knives."
> "Then we remind them what it feels like to bleed," Linet said softly.
Jayden dropped a bloodstained map onto the altar.
> "This isn't conquest. This is reclamation."
The golden raven's message had been clear.
But what wasn't written haunted them all:
Who sent it?
Why now?
And why blood?
---
Far beneath the ruins, Jeff sprinted through hollowed tunnels, shadows licking his heels.
His chains had been broken.
But his guilt remained.
Every echo reminded him of Jayden's eyes — eyes that once believed in him.
He reached a chamber buried in the heart of the earth — one that hadn't been touched in centuries.
Inside it stood a mirror.
Not glass.
Not metal.
But memories.
It showed him a throne.
Not Jayden's.
Not Solmar's.
But his.
> "You were meant to rule," a voice slithered.
> "No," Jeff said. "I was meant to save him."
---
Their army wasn't an army.
It was a tapestry of pain — refugees, rebels, orphans, outlaws. All marching toward a city built on arrogance and silk.
Jayden didn't inspire them with promises.
He inspired them with truth.
> "We're not marching to win," he told them. "We're marching because they said we couldn't."
Linet rode beside him.
> "We're outnumbered ten to one."
> "Then we fight ten times harder."
Maggy kissed his shoulder as they passed through the ruined gates of Cindor, where an old woman handed Jayden a carved figurine of a phoenix.
> "For luck," she said.
Jayden looked at the bird.
Smiled.
> "For resurrection."
---
Solmar was paradise painted in poison.
Golden towers, crystal fountains, roads made of stone that whispered secrets if you stepped just right.
But behind the beauty?
Corpses.
Forgotten slaves.
And a king who hadn't left his throne in forty years.
They arrived at the city's edge just as the sun died.
Jayden raised his sword.
> "No speeches," he said.
> "No mercy," Maggy added.
> "No retreat," Mira finished.
---
They didn't expect him to breach the gates.
They didn't expect him to kill twenty guards with one sweep.
They didn't expect him to reach the High Throne.
But Jayden did.
He stood before the king — a man of silk and silver, crowned in stars.
> "Your crown belongs to another."
The king laughed, but it sounded like a cough.
> "You think blood earns you royalty?"
Jayden raised his sword.
> "No. But blood remembers it."
And in one motion, he struck.
Not to kill.
But to end history.
The crown fell.
So did the old ways.
---
Solmar fell that night.
Not in fire.
Not in screams.
But in silence.
Its people opened doors, lit torches, and stepped outside as if waking from a dream.
Children touched the marble roads and realized they weren't made of gold — just polished lies.
Jayden stood in the courtyard.
And wept.
For the first time in years.
Because winning sometimes feels worse than losing.
Especially when there's no one left to celebrate with you.
---
Jeff returned on the third day.
Covered in dust.
Haunted.
Jayden met him alone in the garden of withered roses.
> "You came back."
> "I had to."
They stood there.
No swords.
No accusations.
Just silence.
> "I saw what I could become," Jeff whispered. "And it terrified me."
> "I saw what you already are," Jayden replied. "And it still gives me hope."
They embraced — not as warriors.
But as brothers.
---
That night, a new raven came.
Its feathers were red.
Its message was a single name.
Written in fire.
> "Elira."
Jayden closed his eyes.
> "She's calling us."
Maggy stood behind him, silent, knowing the journey wasn't over.
Not yet.
---