The Monarch’s Ashes

The wind carried the scent of old blood and burning incense as Cassian stepped beyond the ruins of the Black Archive. The battle with Draven had left his limbs aching, but the fire within him refused to let him falter. His body was not what it once was—he was something more now, something reborn in fire and shadow. Yet the embers in his veins felt heavier than before, as though they carried whispers he could not yet decipher.

Varethis was different. He had once known this city as a soldier, as a noble, as a dead man. Now he walked its streets as something else entirely.

The alleys were vacant, the homes shuttered. Fear lingered in the cracks of the cobblestone roads, a presence heavier than any mist. Cassian's footsteps echoed through the silence, a reminder that though the city lived, its people did not.

The Inquisition's grip had tightened.

He had expected pursuit, but none came. That was what unsettled him most. Draven did not make mistakes. If the Inquisition was not hunting him, it was because they were waiting for something worse.

He moved through the labyrinth of abandoned corridors and market stalls, his senses keen for movement. The sky above Varethis was a void, the stars swallowed by an unnatural haze. His return had stirred something awake. The empire could feel it, even if they did not understand it.

Cassian reached an old bridge that arched over the dried riverbed dividing the city. Beyond it, the lower districts sprawled—homes stacked atop each other like uneven tombstones. Once, this had been a place of merchants and thieves, the underbelly of the empire's golden facade. Now, it was silent.

Too silent.

Cassian slowed his pace, instincts honed from years of war clawing at his mind. There was something here. Something watching.

Then he heard it.

A whisper, curling through the air like smoke.

"You should not have returned."

Cassian turned sharply, his hand drifting toward the hilt of his weapon. The voice was neither human nor entirely unnatural. It was something in between, something that had once been alive.

From the shadows of a ruined archway, a figure emerged. Their robes were tattered, their face obscured by a mask of polished bone. The sigil carved into the forehead was unmistakable—the mark of the Specters.

Cassian's grip tightened.

"I don't answer to the dead," he said.

The figure took a step closer, unhurried. "Then you have forgotten what you are."

Cassian exhaled sharply. "I know exactly what I am. The empire tried to burn me, and it failed. Now I will finish what I started."

The Specter tilted their head. "Your war ended with your death. The empire has already won. You are nothing more than an echo."

Cassian smirked. "Then why do you fear me?"

The Specter did not respond immediately. The silence stretched, thick with something unseen. Cassian could feel it pressing against his skin, something old and heavy.

Finally, the Specter spoke. "We do not fear you. We fear what you will awaken."

The words sent a chill through Cassian's veins, despite the fire still burning beneath his skin. He knew what the Specters were. Once, they had been priests, scholars, men and women who had seen the truth of the throne and had vanished into the depths of forgotten history. They did not serve the empire. They served something older.

"What is coming?" Cassian demanded.

The Specter's gaze was unreadable behind their mask. "The same thing that buried your predecessors."

Cassian took a step forward. "The Hollow Throne."

The Specter inclined their head slightly. "Not the throne. The thing beneath it."

Cassian clenched his jaw. He had suspected as much, but hearing it spoken aloud made the reality settle in his chest like iron. He had come back to reclaim the empire, to burn away the rot that had festered in his absence. But what if the throne was not something to be reclaimed? What if it was something to be destroyed?

"You will not reach the throne alive," the Specter said. "Not alone."

Cassian exhaled, his mind racing. "Then tell me what I need."

The Specter's head tilted slightly, as if listening to something beyond the veil of the world. Then they spoke. "You will find what you seek in the City of Ghosts. But tread carefully, Burned King. The dead do not forgive."

Cassian watched as the figure stepped backward, their form dissolving into the mist that had begun creeping through the streets. He did not follow. He did not need to.

The City of Ghosts.

A place where the past never rested, and the echoes of those who had come before him still walked.

Cassian turned his gaze toward the distant horizon, where the remnants of the old empire lay waiting.

The journey to the City of Ghosts was long, stretching through the abandoned outskirts of the empire where the sky was forever darkened. Cassian traveled by night, avoiding the eyes of those who still lurked within the empire's reach. He passed through villages where the wind whispered through empty homes, where doors hung open and dust covered every surface, untouched for years.

By the fourth night, he reached the threshold of the ruined city. The gates loomed before him, twisted iron covered in etchings he did not recognize. The mist that crept through the streets beyond was unnatural—shifting, moving, whispering.

Cassian exhaled. The fire within him roared in warning, but he stepped forward.

The gates groaned open.

The City of Ghosts welcomed him.

Cassian moved cautiously, his footsteps quiet against the cracked stone. The city was vast, sprawling ruins of an age long past. Towering spires of black stone stretched toward the sky, their surfaces carved with sigils that pulsed with faint light. The streets were empty, yet the air felt heavy with the presence of something unseen.

The whispers grew louder as he moved deeper.

Figures flickered at the edge of his vision, vanishing when he turned to look. Shadows stretched unnaturally, shifting with each step he took. The city was alive, but not in the way a city should be.

Then, in the distance, he saw it.

A throne, broken and forgotten, sitting atop a shattered dais in the center of the ruins. Something about it called to him, a presence older than time itself lingering in the air around it.

Cassian took a step forward.

The whispers turned to screams.

The world blurred, and suddenly he was not standing in the ruins but in a great hall, surrounded by faceless figures draped in tattered robes. The throne was whole, and before it knelt a man—no, not a man. A god.

Cassian's breath hitched. He knew this vision was not his own. It was a memory, an echo of something that had happened long before his time.

A voice, deep and resonant, echoed through the chamber.

"You are not the first."

Cassian's vision shattered, and he was back in the ruined city, his heart pounding in his chest. The fire within him flared, but the embers felt colder than before.

He had come seeking answers.

And now, he was certain—

The Hollow Throne was not meant to be sat upon.

It was meant to be buried.