Chapter 96 – The War-Wake
The mountain no longer slept.
Its heart had been split. Its crown taken. And what stepped from its broken gate was not merely a man—but a reckoning.
Caedren descended through fire and falling ash, the Crown of Ash and Blood sitting like a scar upon his brow. The mountain's breath still roared behind him, hot and rumbling like a god disturbed from slumber. The world bent in silence around him, as though the winds themselves bowed. Snow melted where he passed, and even the stones seemed reluctant to bear his weight.
Lysa staggered forward, her voice lost in her throat. She had seen death, prophecy, miracle—but never this.
Tarn muttered, awestruck, "He did it… gods, he really did it…"
But neither dared approach. Not immediately.
Because this Caedren was not the same.
His eyes were open, yet saw further.
His wounds were grave, but he walked like pain no longer mattered.
He carried his sword sheathed—but the air around him bled.
His presence was not that of a victor, but of a revenant. Not returned from war, but born of it. The brand of the Hollow Son still burned on his skin, now eclipsed by the crown's shadow resting on his brow.
"Thalen?" Lysa finally asked, hoarse.
Caedren answered without looking. "He fulfilled his purpose."
He walked past them, leaving footprints in molten stone, and said no more.
They followed.
Behind them, the Iron Gate collapsed.
News spread faster than birds.
They said the mountain had split.
That a man had walked out crowned in smoke.
That his eyes burned like fallen stars.
And the skies above the southern provinces turned red for a night and a day—clouds shaped like wings, like eyes, like omens.
In the palace at Aestra, the usurper-general Galen awoke from a dreamless sleep, clutching his chest, murmuring, "He's come…"
In the east, the scholars of the Old Flame lit black candles and sent crows in all directions.
And in the city of mirrors, a child screamed at the sight of his own reflection—and would not speak again.
Caedren rode north.
Not to return to Karrhollow.
But to warn it.
Because the crown had not just chosen him.
It had spoken.
And what it told him chilled even the Forge-born steel in his bones.
"There is a shadow born before memory. It sleeps still. Beneath the Kingless World. And now… it turns."
He did not speak of it at first. Not to Lysa. Not to Tarn. The words were too vast. The truth too raw. But it haunted his dreams, and worse, it haunted his waking steps. He could feel something stirring across the land, not bound to armies or banners. Something old. Something patient.
He had not earned the crown to rule.
He had claimed it to fight.
But the realm was breaking.
Galen, in his southern fortress, declared Caedren a false claimant, a warlock king, an abomination from the hollow depths.
He rallied twelve banners.
Promised gold and glory to any who brought the king's head.
And he moved swiftly.
He brought with him flame-sowers, blood-chained beasts, and traitors once loyal.
He called his army the Binding Host.
He said they would burn the false crown and salt the mountain behind it.
While Caedren healed, Galen marched.
But Caedren's allies did not wait idle.
Lysa prepared.
In the ashwood valleys, she called the scattered loyalists—smiths, spies, songbearers, and even old warpriests who remembered the last time a crown rose from fire.
She was his blade in the dark.
His voice in the crowd.
And his hand when mercy was needed.
She spoke in taverns and temples.
"He wears the crown, but he does not sit on a throne. That is the difference. That is the hope."
Tarn gathered the exiled—the failed mercenaries, the once-fallen knights. "He carries the crown, lads," he told them. "And hell follows him. Let's walk before it eats us."
They came, not in legions, but in dozens. And then in hundreds. Quiet men with long memories. Women who had lost sons. Or daughters. Or homes. They came not for gold—but for the silence that had lived too long in their hearts.
And Caedren dreamed.
Not of the future.
But of Kael.
Of the man who once broke Ivan.
Of the man who refused to rule.
Kael, the first of the Ashen Oath.
Kael, who walked into the ruins of empire and chose silence over sovereignty.
And as the dream faded, Caedren awoke with three words burning in his mouth:
"He's coming back."
The real enemy was never Galen.
It was not Thalen.
It was not even the crown.
It was what Kael had tried to end a thousand years ago—and only postponed.
Now Caedren would have to finish what history began.
Even if it cost him everything.
Even if it meant becoming the very thing he once feared.
Even if he had to lose himself to hold the line.
The War-Wake had begun.
And the world would not sleep again until one truth was decided:
Who dares rule a world where kings no longer belong?
A storm was coming.
And this time, the storm had a name.