The Ashen Ridge lived up to its name.
A spine of blackened stone jutted from the earth like the ribs of some titan that had starved to death long before history began. Wind screamed between the jagged boulders, carrying flakes of obsidian sharp enough to draw blood from any exposed skin.
Nothing lived here.
Nothing dared.
Even the Inkborn avoided this ridge, as if the stones themselves remembered what sunlight felt like—and refused to let darkness settle.
Aren climbed with Lira held against his chest.
Every step hurt. Every breath was a fight. The shadows at his feet rose up again and again, offering to carry her—eager, hungry, like hounds craving a command.
Aren forced them back down with a snarl.
Some things he still needed to do with his own hands.
Lira had passed out nearly an hour ago. Fever heat radiated from her skin. Infection gnawed through her leg like a slow, deliberate fire. Sometimes her lips moved with half-formed words.
"...not your fault… stupid hero complex…"
Aren almost smiled.
At the crest of the ridge, the watchtower finally appeared—an impossibly thin needle of pale stone piercing the dead sky. Built by the ancient Luminarchs, if the records were true. The order that had once bound the Veil itself.
Faded glyphs still glimmered faintly across its walls. Silver. Soft. Pure.
The only light left in the world.
The door hung crooked on rusted hinges.
Inside, the air bit colder. Spiral stairs vanished upward into darkness. On the ground floor, robed bodies lay collapsed in silent devotion—desiccated, untouched by ink, as if time alone had taken them.
They had died kneeling toward the altar at the center of the chamber.
A plinth of moon-pale marble.
Empty.
Except for a circular indentation.
A heart-sized hollow.
Aren set Lira gently on the least dusty patch of floor and knelt beside her. He tore a strip from his cloak, tightening the bandage around her ruined leg. Her breath hitched, but she didn't wake.
The shadows leaned in, curious, brushing her skin like cats nosing at warm milk.
Don't you dare, Aren thought coldly.
The shadows recoiled, sulking.
A low chuckle drifted from the stairwell.
"Still fighting yourself, little prince? How adorably mortal."
The voice was velvet dipped in rust.
A woman stepped into the glow of the glyphs. Tall. Barefoot. Wrapped in what might have once been a court gown—now reduced to tattered silk that clung to her like living midnight.
Her skin was ink.
Her eyes, eclipses rimmed with molten silver.
Her crown—living shadow—shifted from antlers to thorns to nothing.
She smiled with too many teeth.
Aren stood. Shadows coiled around him like attack dogs barely held back.
"You're late," he said.
"Am I?" She tilted her head, amused. "I've waited centuries. A few more hours mean nothing." Her gaze slid to Lira. "You brought a snack. Considerate."
The shadows lunged before Aren could stop them.
They collided with a deeper darkness—hers—and shattered like brittle glass.
She didn't even blink.
"Control," she said lightly. "You'll need oceans of it if you plan to sit the Eclipse Throne."
"I don't plan to sit anything," Aren said. "I came for light."
"Light." She tasted the word like spoiled wine. "There's none left, boy. Not since the Veil tore. We both watched it die."
She stepped closer. The chamber temperature dropped instantly.
"My name is Nyxvara. Once First Concubine to the Umbral King." She curtsied with a predator's grace. "Now… regent, I suppose, until the rightful heir arrives."
Her smile sharpened.
"Hello, my sweet, murderous prince."
The whispers inside Aren surged—recognition, hunger, belonging.
He crushed them so violently his vision blurred.
"I'm not your anything," he snapped.
"Oh, but you are." Nyxvara circled him slowly, savoring every step. "The blood doesn't lie. The Veil chose you the moment it frayed. Every kneeling Inkborn, every shadow that echoes your heartbeat… that's not power you earned." She leaned close. "It's inheritance."
She stopped behind him, breath cold as starlight against his neck.
"Your mother sealed you away for a reason. Tried to make you human."
A whisper.
"How cruel of her."
Aren spun, shadows lashing out.
Nyxvara caught his wrist with fingers that weren't fully solid.
"Listen," she breathed.
From far below—deeper than the tower should go—a sound rose.
A heartbeat.
Slow. Vast. Ancient.
Thump—thump.
The glyphs flickered in panic.
The Eclipse Throne was waking.
Nyxvara's eyes overflowed with silver tears.
"It's empty," she whispered, trembling. "And the world is dying because there is no ruler. Light and darkness were never enemies—only balance. Someone must take the Throne, or the dark consumes everything."
She released him, gesturing toward the altar.
"Place your heart in the hollow. Claim what is yours. The Inkborn will retreat. The Veil will stabilize. The sun may even return."
Aren stared at the empty indentation.
Behind him, Lira moaned softly.
He looked at her. Then at Nyxvara. Then at his own hands—clean, always clean—shaking for the first time since the sky went black.
"And if I refuse?" he whispered.
Nyxvara's smile faltered.
"Then the Veil shreds completely. The Inkborn devour what's left. And you, my prince—" her voice softened into something close to pity, "will watch everyone you love dissolve into the dark you could have commanded."
She pointed delicately at Lira.
Thump—
Thump—
Thump—
The heartbeat shook dust from the ceiling.
Aren closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the silver of Nyxvara's gaze reflected something new in his own.
"Get out," he said.
The shadows rose around him like a tidal wave.
Nyxvara laughed—delighted, terrified, proud—and melted back into the stairwell.
"The Throne will call you, my king," her voice echoed. "It always does."
Silence again.
Broken only by the monstrous heartbeat
and Lira's ragged breaths.
Aren knelt at her side and brushed hair from her forehead.
"Hey," he whispered. "Still with me?"
Her eyelids fluttered open. "Unfortunately."
"Good."
He lifted her into his arms.
And with one last look at the altar, Aren turned toward the stairwell—the path down, toward the source of that impossible heartbeat.
"Change of plans," he muttered.
Lira sighed weakly. "Got a third option, hero?"
Aren stepped into the dark, shadows singing in anticipation.
"Yeah," he said.
"I'm going to break the fucking throne."
The ridge shook as he descended—
and the Throne shuddered awake.