Chapter 85 – Storm Above, Serpents Below
When they emerged from the cistern, dawn had not yet come—but the Capitol was already in chaos.
Word of the attack had spread like wildfire, and though no official decree had been issued, the streets were restless. Murmurs clung to every alley: of ghostly assassins, of Lysa's vanishing, of the king's death—and his resurrection.
The city had tasted fear. And it had liked the taste.
In the royal keep, Councilor Veylan stood before a hastily assembled tribunal. His voice was calm, but every word a calculated incision.
"We cannot afford another night like last. Already, the provinces whisper rebellion. The Hollow Hand has pierced our highest chambers. The king is weak—some say cursed. The tree stirs. The omens align. We must act."
Beside him, Lady Cireth of the Southern Dominion nodded, though her eyes held doubt.
And in the shadows, a courier leaned close to the High Marshal and whispered:
"He lives. The attempt failed."
The Marshal did not respond. He simply shifted his stance slightly—closer to his sword.
Caedren watched the rain fall from the tower's highest balcony.
Below, banners had been torn down by the wind. Guardsmen had doubled their patrols, and firelight flickered behind every shutter.
Lysa lay recovering, wrapped in bandages that even she refused to complain about. Tarn moved like a ghost through the halls, already compiling reports, mapping fractures in their already-shaking court.
But Caedren did not move.
He could still feel the pulse of the ash tree. A song that hadn't stopped. A rhythm beneath his ribs. As if something old was still watching.
"The King was never meant to return."
Those words echoed louder now.
Elsewhere, in the vaults beneath the ruined observatory, a man awoke who should have been dead.
General Routh.
Long thought lost in the Border Rebellion, his body was found, re-stitched by rites forbidden in both east and west. He opened his eyes and saw not light, but a symbol carved into the ceiling:
A hand, fingers broken, palm burning.
He rose.
He remembered Caedren.
He remembered Ivan.
And he remembered being left behind.
Tarn intercepted three letters that night.
One was to a mercenary company called The White Thorn, once employed by House Reven. It offered them coin and access to the city in return for "deposing a rootless king."
The second was to the western provinces, invoking the Right of Separation, a clause unused since the First Sundering. It bore Lady Cireth's seal.
The third was blank—no words, no markings, no signature.
Just a single petal of ashwood pressed between the folds.
Tarn handed it to Caedren.
"What does it mean?" the young king asked.
Tarn's face was grim.
"It means someone who knew Kael is still alive."
In her chamber, Lysa stared at the ceiling. Her wounds itched. Her bones ached. Her sister's voice refused to leave her.
You and I—we were made for this.
She whispered her name. Her real name. The one no one in the Capitol knew.
The name she had buried.
It burned in her mouth.
Because she had chosen Caedren.
But maybe—just maybe—there was no such thing as choosing once.
You had to choose again.
Every day.
The Hollow Hand did not die that night.
It shifted.
Its cells went deeper. Its whispers changed tone. It no longer sought merely to kill Caedren.
Now it sought to prove he should not exist.
And somewhere beyond the western ridge, past the old scorched fields where Kael had once stood with blade raised to the sky, a new figure rode with an army of silence.
A mask of bone.
A sword once wielded by Ivan's third student.
And a message nailed to the gates of every border town:
"The King of the Kingless World shall fall—not by war,
but by truth."