Chapter 4 – Fire in the Throne Hall
The capital smelled of wet stone, oil... and blood.
Eden stood inside the ruined royal hall, hidden behind a cracked marble pillar. Statues of former emperors stared down with shattered eyes. The throne—once gold—was now a rusted skeleton, soaked in ash.
She had returned not as a servant of the empire…
But as its ghost.
Footsteps echoed. Soldiers. Two of them, armored and laughing. Eden pressed herself into the shadows.
"You hear the rumors?" one said. "General Ro says the girl survived. The strategist's daughter."
"Hah! That's just battlefield gossip. She died years ago."
Eden smirked. If only they knew.
She struck fast—one dagger to the neck, the other to the gut. The bodies dropped without a sound.
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She moved deeper into the throne hall, toward a cracked tile near the emperor's chair. Beneath it, she found what her father once told her to seek…
A key, hidden in the stone.
> "When the empire forgets your name, find the lock they never could."
The key was shaped like a dragon's fang, cold and black.
Behind the throne, Eden inserted it into the wall — and the stone shifted.
A secret door.
She stepped into the darkness, torches lighting with ancient magic as the path revealed itself.
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Inside was a war room no one had entered in years. Maps. Codes. Scrolls.
And at the center… a steel box with her family crest on it.
She opened it.
Inside were orders for a secret army. One her father