The Monarch’s Ashes

The Black Archive trembled with the force of their battle, echoes of clashing steel and surging flames ricocheting off the towering shelves. Ancient tomes, some untouched for centuries, were shaken loose, tumbling onto the stone floor like fallen leaves. Cassian had fought in countless battles before, had tasted war on the edges of his blade, but this was different.

This was survival.

Draven moved with deadly precision, his strikes calculated, relentless. He fought like a man who had seen death and mastered the art of sending others to meet it. His crimson armor gleamed under the dim torchlight, an omen of the empire's merciless doctrine.

Cassian's own movements were less refined, driven more by instinct and the unnatural power humming beneath his skin. The embers within him pulsed, their glow intensifying with each moment. Fire crackled along the edges of his blade, the heat warping the very air around him. He was not the same man who had burned upon the pyre—he was something else now.

But Draven was not impressed.

"Your flames may have spared you from death, but they will not save you from me," the Inquisitor snarled, his blade sweeping in a deadly arc.

Cassian barely managed to parry, the force of the impact sending him skidding backward. He caught himself against one of the archive's stone pillars, his breath ragged but steady. He needed an opening, a moment of hesitation—but Draven allowed none.

The High Inquisitor lunged again, and Cassian twisted away just in time. The blade carved through the air where his throat had been mere seconds before. A flicker of satisfaction lit Draven's gaze, as if he had expected Cassian to falter, to break beneath the weight of his assault.

Cassian gritted his teeth. He refused to give him that satisfaction.

He let the fire take hold.

The embers beneath his skin surged outward, and in an instant, Cassian was no longer retreating—he was advancing. His next strike sent a shockwave of heat through the air, forcing Draven back a step. It was the first moment of hesitation Cassian had seen in the man, and he seized it.

His footwork shifted, his strikes becoming faster, sharper. The scent of scorched metal filled the air as their blades met again and again, each impact sending sparks cascading like dying stars. Draven's expression darkened, his movements more measured now, wary of the fire that twisted around Cassian like a living thing.

Then, without warning, Cassian turned the flames inward. The embers that burned beneath his skin coiled, condensed, and when he exhaled—

The world ignited.

A wave of fire exploded outward, swallowing the archive in its heated embrace. Scrolls shriveled, books blackened, and the stone itself glowed red-hot. Draven disappeared within the inferno, his crimson armor blending with the blaze. For a moment, Cassian thought he had won.

Then a shadow moved within the fire.

Draven emerged, untouched.

Cassian barely had time to react before the Inquisitor's hand lashed out, gripping him by the throat. The fire died instantly, snuffed out as though it had never existed. The pressure around Cassian's neck tightened, his vision darkening at the edges.

"Did you think fire alone could defeat me?" Draven's voice was calm, almost amused. "You are not the first heretic to wield the embers, and you will not be the last to fall."

Cassian struggled, his fingers clawing at Draven's grip, but the man's strength was unyielding. The embers inside him flared in protest, but something was suppressing them, suffocating them.

Draven leaned closer, his voice a whisper of steel and certainty. "The throne does not belong to you. It never did."

Cassian's vision swam. The world tilted, his limbs growing heavy. He had come so far. He could not fall here. He would not.

With the last of his strength, he reached inside himself, past the embers, past the fire, deeper than he ever had before. And there, buried beneath the flames, was something older. Something colder.

A whisper echoed in his mind.

You are not the first.

Cassian's eyes snapped open, and the fire inside him changed.

The heat was gone, replaced by something deeper, something darker. The flames that flickered across his skin dimmed to an eerie blue, their glow casting ghostly shadows across the walls. Draven's grip faltered for the first time.

Cassian struck.

A surge of raw energy burst from within him, shattering Draven's hold and sending the Inquisitor hurtling backward. The walls of the Black Archive cracked under the force, bookshelves collapsing in a cascade of splintered wood and ancient knowledge. Cassian landed on his knees, chest heaving, his body alight with unnatural power.

Draven stood across from him, watching. He was breathing harder now, his eyes narrowed, assessing. And for the first time, there was something in his gaze beyond disdain.

Curiosity.

Cassian rose to his feet, his hands still crackling with the unfamiliar energy. He met Draven's gaze without fear.

"You were right about one thing, Inquisitor," he said, his voice steady. "I am not the first."

Draven inclined his head slightly, his lips curving into the faintest hint of a smile. "No," he agreed. "You are not."

Then, without another word, he stepped back into the shadows—and vanished.

The Black Archive lay in ruins around Cassian, but he hardly noticed. He flexed his fingers, watching the last remnants of blue fire flicker out.

Something had changed.

Something had awakened.

And he had no idea what it meant.

Cassian took a slow breath, feeling the weight of the power that had surged through him. He looked around at the destruction he had wrought, at the scorched remains of the Archive's sacred tomes. He had barely escaped with his life. Draven had retreated, but not out of fear—out of curiosity.

That alone unsettled him more than any battle wound could.

The embers beneath his skin had always been a part of him, a consequence of the throne's rejection. But this—this icy fire—was something else entirely. He needed answers. He needed to understand what he had become before the next confrontation came.

And he had no doubt that it would come soon.

He turned, stepping over the wreckage, and made his way toward the only place where forbidden truths might still remain.

The Shadow Sanctum.

A place where even the dead whispered secrets.

Cassian exhaled, adjusting his tattered cloak. His path was set.

And the empire would soon learn that the Burned King had only just begun.