The Monarch’s Ashes

The world smelled of ash.

Cassian Vale clawed his way from the scorched earth, his fingers digging into the charred remains of what had once been his own funeral pyre. Smoke clung to his lungs, thick and heavy, laced with the scent of burnt flesh—his own. The pain was distant now, as though his body had long since forgotten how to suffer. He did not know how long he had been lying in the ruins of his own execution, but the embers still smoldered around him.

He should have been dead.

Instead, he opened his eyes to darkness.

The execution had been public. Thousands had watched as the flames consumed him, their voices a deafening roar in his ears. They had called him a traitor. A usurper. They had cheered when the flames licked his skin and turned his robes to nothing but glowing cinders. He remembered the agony, the way his body had twisted against the chains as the fire devoured him. He remembered screaming.

And then—silence.

Now, the silence was all that remained.

Cassian pushed himself upright, his limbs stiff, his movements slow. His clothes were gone, reduced to nothing but tatters of blackened fabric clinging to his frame. He looked down at himself and saw skin marred with cracks, glowing faintly with ember-like light beneath the surface. His fingers trembled as he ran them along his arm, over the broken landscape of his own flesh. He should have felt pain. He should have felt something.

But he felt nothing at all.

A whisper stirred in the air, faint as the dying embers around him.

You are not the first.

Cassian turned sharply, but there was no one there. The execution plaza was empty, the torches along the great marble pillars still flickering with dying light. The city of Varethis was asleep beyond these walls, its people unaware that the man they had burned still walked.

His name should have been carved into the tombs of the forgotten. His existence should have been erased, just as the Inquisition had decreed. And yet, he remained.

The throne had rejected him.

He staggered forward, leaving behind the smoldering remnants of his own grave. Each step felt unsteady, as though the world itself resisted his presence. The streets of the capital stretched before him, empty and shrouded in shadow. The city that had condemned him had moved on, believing him nothing more than a corpse.

But Cassian Vale had returned.

And he would burn his way through their lies to reclaim what was his.

The air was thick with the weight of midnight, a veil that suffocated the light and left only cold silence in its wake. Cassian stepped into the abandoned streets of Varethis, the once-bustling avenues now eerie in their stillness. His bare feet touched the cobbled stone, leaving faintly glowing footprints that faded like dying embers. The city had changed in his absence—or perhaps it was he who had changed.

As he moved through the deserted alleys, fragments of memory stirred at the edges of his mind. He had walked these streets before, in another life. He had marched through them at the head of an army, wearing the colors of the empire, his name whispered with admiration and fear alike. But that name had been burned away. He had been erased, and the world had continued without him.

He passed a row of merchant stalls, their wares long since packed away, their wooden frames casting elongated shadows under the dim lanterns. The scent of spice and old parchment clung to the air, mingling with the acrid scent of charred flesh that still clung to him. He wondered if anyone would recognize him—if any soul would dare to look upon him and remember.

A sound echoed in the distance—a muffled voice, hurried footsteps on stone. Cassian stilled, pressing himself into the darkness of an alley. His senses, sharper than before, caught the scent of steel and sweat—guards.

They were searching for something. Or someone.

He listened, forcing his breath to steady, his muscles coiling in anticipation.

"The High Inquisitor wants a full sweep of the execution grounds," one voice murmured. "If the rumors are true…"

"They aren't," another snapped. "A man does not rise from the pyre. The Inquisition made certain of that."

Cassian's lips curled into a bitter smirk. They were wrong.

He pressed forward, moving between the alleys with unnatural ease. The streets of Varethis had once been a second home to him—he had studied every turn, memorized every escape route. But the city had changed, just as he had. The weight of the throne's rejection clung to him like a shroud, and he could feel the presence of something unseen pressing against the edges of his mind. Something watching.

As he reached the outskirts of the plaza, he found himself standing before the reflection of his past—the Black Archive.

A massive structure, carved from obsidian and reinforced with wards of forgotten power. The Archive was the empire's vault of forbidden knowledge, a place where history was rewritten, where men were erased from existence with ink and silence. If there were answers to his return, they would be hidden within those walls.

A shiver ran through him. This place was more than stone and parchment—it was a prison of memories, a mausoleum for the truth.

He stepped closer, feeling the ember-light beneath his skin pulse in recognition. The city had tried to forget him, but the Archive would remember.

It always did.

The halls of the Black Archive were lined with tomes older than the empire itself, the scent of ink and dust clinging to the air like a solemn hymn. Cassian moved through the shadows, his senses attuned to the silence that reigned within these walls. The Inquisition had ensured that no living soul roamed these corridors at night, yet the whispers of the past lingered, ghostly murmurs in the dark.

He ran his fingers along the spines of the books, their titles obscured by time and censorship. The Inquisition had spent centuries crafting history, bending truth to serve their will. If he were to uncover the truth of his resurrection, it would not be in the official records. He needed the forbidden texts—the ones sealed away even from the eyes of scholars.

His gaze fell upon a lone pedestal at the center of the chamber, a single tome resting atop it. The cover bore no title, only the imprint of a sigil long forgotten by mortal men. Something within him stirred, an ember of recognition that should not have existed.

His fingers trembled as he reached for the book, the air around him growing thick with unseen weight. The moment his fingertips brushed the leather binding, pain lanced through him—a searing brand of memory, of fire, of the voices of those who had come before him.

You are not the first.

The world shifted, the shadows deepening, and Cassian felt himself pulled into the depths of something far older than the empire itself. The walls of the Archive melted away, replaced by a void of endless flame, and in the heart of it, a figure stood waiting.

A king with no face. A throne with no master.

And a voice that burned like the fire that had once consumed him.

"Welcome back, Cassian Vale."