Chapter 34. Ash and Inheritance

The hall lay in silence—not the brittle quiet of fear, but the heavier stillness of uncertainty. They did not yet know what to call her. They did not yet know what she had become.

Seraya sat upon the stone throne, her skin still warm with the fire that had claimed her. The crown was no longer something she wore. It had burned itself into her—into bone and thought—unseen by most eyes, yet present enough that the walls around her hummed with restrained power. The air itself seemed to listen when she breathed.

Her heartbeat had changed.

Slower now. Deeper.

The mountain’s rhythm answered it, stone echoing flesh, flesh answering stone.

To her right stood the Lycan, massive and unmoving. Not a servant. Not a guard. Simply waiting, as it