Ashes of the crown

POV: Ruvan ❄️👑⚔️

Ruvan didn't sleep.

He sat alone in the citadel's lower war chamber, poring over scrolls, reports, and mirror fragments etched with flickers of Corven's surveillance.

Ariya's power was growing.

Faster than he could stall.

She had awakened the Sentinel. Survived it. Claimed it.

That should've been impossible.

"And yet," he muttered, watching her image flicker in the glass, "you keep proving me wrong."

His hand drifted to the mark on his chest — a subtle blue glow pulsing beneath the frost-veined skin.

The same rhythm.

The same heat.

It made no sense.

He was supposed to control her. Use her. Trap her.

So why did it feel like their fates were… tied?

He was still staring at the mirror shard when the door burst open.

A soldier ran in, pale and panicked.

"My prince — your sister—"

Ruvan was already standing.

"What about her?"

"She… she took a covert wing. Disguised herself. She left."

"Left where?"

"South. Toward the ruins. The Flamebearer's path."

The room went still.

Ruvan's jaw clenched. Ice cracked beneath his boots as power surged under his skin.

"She what?!"

It didn't take long to confirm.

Lira had slipped out under the guise of diplomatic travel — borrowed royal seals, bribes, and a cloaking charm that only highbloods could cast.

She was headed straight toward Ariya's path.

Alone.

Without guards.

Without his permission.

"Of course she did," he growled.

She had always been reckless.

Too clever, too curious — and far too drawn to fire.

Ruvan stormed back into the tower chamber, fury like winter in his lungs. He paced, cursed under his breath, then stopped as his fingers brushed against an old frostglass shard embedded in the wall — a remnant of their childhood.

They'd made a vow there once.

He was eleven. She was nine.

Back then, they thought they'd rule side by side.

"I'll be the sword," he had said.

"Then I'll be the voice," she replied, smiling. "The one that speaks when your blade can't."

Now she was both — and too loud for her own good.

He summoned his second-in-command.

"Send two trackers. Quiet. If she speaks to Ariya, I want to know exactly what she says. No contact. No engagement. Just watch."

"And if she interferes with the trap?"

Ruvan's voice dropped to ice.

"Then she'll have made her choice."

Far south, under a pale moon, Lira tossed her cloak aside and stepped into a shadowy pass. Her disguise melted away, revealing silver-blonde braids and froststeel armor lined in violet.

"You're not the only one with a plan, big brother," she whispered.

From a hidden satchel, she pulled out a glowing orb — a soft orange flame flickering inside it.

Not frost-magic.

Not shadow.

Light.

A shard from the old Temple of Balance — stolen from the vault beneath their ancestors' tomb.

"You want to break her, Ruvan," she said quietly. "I want to warn her."

The orb pulsed in her hand, already sensing the mark in Ariya's blood somewhere ahead.

"Let's see who reaches her first."

And with that, Princess Lira vanished into the dark — bringing fire into enemy lands.