Chapter 97 – Ashmere Fields Burn
Ashmere had once been a cradle of beauty—a vale where the sun lingered, and the wildflowers sang on the breeze. Once, the rivers whispered in silver tongues. Once, children played where wheat now burned. Once. Now it stank of iron, leather, and fire. Now it bore the scent of war.
Galen's banners arrived first.
Twelve hosts, each marked with a symbol stolen from the past: the crescent blade of the old southern guard, the cracked wheel of the mountain houses, the blood-leaf of the traitor tribes. Symbols worn by men who had long forgotten their meaning. He had gathered every discontented wolf in the kingdom—and starved them. Let their hunger do the rest.
Now he let them loose.
The sky darkened with smoke before a single sword was drawn. The wind tasted of sulfur. Crows circled high above, eager heralds of the feast to come.
Caedren stood on a hill above the field, cloak torn, armor patched by firelight and old hands. The Crown of Ash and Blood gleamed dully atop his head, not as a sign of glory, but of burden. A weight that pressed into his bones, whispered in his sleep, carved new lines in his face.
He did not give speeches.
He simply looked at the men and women around him—scraps of old bloodlines, orphans of dead ideals, remnants of broken oaths—and nodded.
"I will not promise survival," he said.
A pause.
"But I promise meaning."
The first charge was thunder.
Galen's hound-riders—beasts bred in the Hollow Kennels, fangs metal-bolted and eyes milk-white—stormed the valley's mouth. They moved with unnatural speed, muscles stitched with sinew not wholly their own.
Lysa loosed the traps they had buried beneath wildgrass. Rows of spears burst from the ground like teeth from the earth's maw.
Screams followed.
Blood. Fur. Splintered armor.
The second wave came on foot—warriors with faces painted like skulls, some weeping from fever-draughts, others grinning like they'd already eaten victory. They sang old songs twisted into war-chants, voices breaking against the wind.
Tarn met them with the axe-bearers from the Ironbar clans. Blades that had once cut through mountain roots now sang through flesh and steel.
Steel howled.
Bone broke.
And the mud drank deep.
Ashmere became a cauldron of shrieks and iron.
Caedren moved only when the left flank began to crumble. When the shrieks turned from battle cries to desperate pleas. When the shield line faltered.
He leapt from the ridge like a shadow let loose, sword raised not for technique but judgment.
He cut a man in half.
Tore another from saddle to soil.
He roared—not words, but wrath.
And the field turned.
From the rear, Galen's Heralds appeared.
Seven riders.
Clad in grey armor veined with red. Silent. Each one bearing a mask shaped like a different emotion—joy, sorrow, rage, contempt. Symbols of the inner war made flesh.
They were not human anymore.
Blood-bonded through rites of the flame tongue. Trained since childhood to kill only the marked. Fed nothing but ash, and truths so bitter they burned the soul.
They rode straight for Caedren.
The first swung a hammer that bent air around it.
Caedren dodged and struck his horse—sending the beast into a shriek and tumble. The Herald crashed into the churned mud, and did not rise again.
The second weaved flame around twin sickles.
Caedren's cloak caught fire.
He shrugged it off and buried his blade through her chest before she finished the chant. Her eyes went wide—more in relief than fear—as she fell.
The third was different.
He dismounted.
Removed his mask.
And it was a boy.
Barely sixteen.
Eyes wide.
Afraid.
Caedren froze.
Just for a heartbeat.
And the boy lunged—with a blade coated in whisperbane. Smoke hissed from its edge. It was no blade of steel. It was a weapon of memory.
It grazed Caedren's side.
The pain came not from the wound—but the voice it brought.
"You are not worthy," it whispered. "You wear a crown of guilt, not fire."
Caedren dropped to a knee.
The world tilted.
Flashes of the Forge. Of Ivan's dying breath. Of Thalen's final whisper. Of Kael's silhouette in the ash.
The fourth Herald moved in, spear raised—
But Lysa shot her through the neck with a bolt from across the field.
A perfect shot.
A moment bought.
The others faltered.
And Caedren rose.
Eyes blood-red. Breathing like the forge itself.
"I am not worthy," he whispered.
Then he turned to the boy—who stood shaking, weapon slipping from his hands. No longer a Herald. Just a child again.
Caedren pressed his hand against the boy's chest.
And said: "That is why I fight."
Then he let him run.
The last of Galen's Heralds retreated, dragging the dead behind them.
The field was not won.
But it was not lost.
It was held.
Barely.
Caedren stood in the blood and fire of Ashmere, wind blowing across the ruin. Men wept for brothers. Women held the wounded. Crows feasted.
And he did not move.
He had buried kings. Killed brothers. Bled truths.
He had worn the Forge's brand and the weight of forgotten legacies.
Now he knew:
The world didn't need a king.
It needed someone who remembered why they ever mattered.