CHAPTER 4 – The Hall of Flame
The Hall of Flame was misnamed.
It stood cold beneath its vaulted ceiling, firelight swallowed by the obsidian walls. Coals hissed in ceremonial braziers, fed with volcanic blackrock from the Scorched Frontier, but their warmth did not reach the ministers seated beneath the dome. Cold drafts whispered through the pillars like ghosts, as if the chamber mourned the loss of the only man who ever truly ruled it.
The Fire Throne sat empty.
Sixty-two days had passed since Emperor Ardan died in his sleep, breath fading between silk and shadow. And in those days, the council had convened without cease—twenty-four men, all powerful, none sovereign.
Minister Etrius, Keeper of Records and Lord of the Ledger Seal, stood at the foot of the throne. His robes were ink-black, marked with the red phoenix of procedural authority.
He cleared his throat. "Sixteenth Session of the Mourning Cycle. Council of Ministries, present quorum met. Witnessed by the Flamekeeper. Topic: succession."
He stepped aside. The chamber awaited a voice.
It was Prince Rhovan who rose first.
Rhovan of Irongate. Second son of the late emperor. Broad-shouldered, plain-spoken, draped in steel-trimmed red and wearing no crown—because he had not yet claimed it.
"My lords," Rhovan said, the words heavy, like hammer-blows on iron. "The throne stands empty. The empire falters. The people need a sovereign."
He paused, eyes scanning the room. He looked not for favor, but for silence. None opposed him aloud.
He continued, voice hardening. "The armies of the West and South await orders. The border legions sit idle. The Scorched Frontier festers. And in the north, the barbarians gather. Delay is no longer virtue. It is cowardice."
A rustle moved through the civil faction.
From across the room, seated beneath a bronze mural of the First Expansion, Prince Vaeron smirked and stood. Vaeron the Firstborn. Favored by the civil ministries, groomed in courts rather than camps. Robed in pale blue, fingers ringed in polished opals—symbols of cultural refinement and coin.
"Brother," Vaeron said mildly, "the war drums in your chest are admirable. But the council is not a barracks. It is a court. And succession is not claimed with force."
Rhovan did not sit. "Succession is claimed with right. And blood."
Vaeron's smile thinned. "Then you acknowledge that others may claim it."
A sharp murmur broke out. Several generals bristled. Minister Galien, of the Coin Ministry, rubbed his temple as if nursing a headache that had lasted weeks.
Etrius stepped in. "Order, please. We have not yet moved to votes or endorsements."
"Because votes will change nothing," Rhovan snapped. "You civil lords cling to delay. To process. But while you bicker, governors falter. Grain shipments stall. Soldiers are unpaid."
Vaeron tilted his head. "Strange. My ledgers show the Coin Ministry funded every legion for the coming quarter. Did your logistics officers lose their accounts?"
Rhovan's hand twitched toward the hilt of his ceremonial sword.
From the shadows at the room's edge, a figure stirred.
Sylas.
Third prince. Youngest by ten years. Draped in quiet gray, expression unreadable.
He did not rise. Not yet.
Instead, his gaze drifted to the fourth seat—empty, unmarked.
A seat for a son disinherited.
No name was spoken. But everyone in that room knew who had once sat there.
Lorien.
The bastard.
---
Minutes passed. Arguments resumed. Speeches, polished and veiled, bloomed like vipers in bloom.
The War Ministry spoke of stability. The Civil Ministry of law. The Coin Ministry of trade routes fraying under indecision.
Vaeron cited treaties with the southern powers, subtly noting that Rhovan's talk of force might violate those accords.
Rhovan countered with reports of barbarian raids in the North—merchant convoys disappearing past Thornvale, smoke rising from ruined keeps. He said nothing of Lorien, but the implication echoed.
It was Sylas who broke the deadlock.
He stood.
"Allow me a question," he said softly. He walked to the center, hands folded behind his back. "What, exactly, defines a threat?"
Silence.
No one answered. Sylas didn't need them to.
"Is it a brother with claim to blood?" he asked. "Is it a minister with too many spies? Is it a noble house arming more than the legal limit?"
He looked to Rhovan. "Or is it the ghost in the north?"
Rhovan frowned. "Ghosts do not build walls."
"No," Sylas said. "But someone is."
He turned slowly, eyes sweeping the chamber.
"Blackhold Keep burns coal again. The Thornvale route is guarded. A courier from the Ember Guard's Vesdil outpost vanished two weeks ago on the Greywatch road. Yet no northern tribe claimed the kill."
Minister Elren of the Law Ministry cleared his throat. "You speak of Prince Lorien?"
Sylas didn't blink. "I speak of the possibility that exile was not extinction."
Vaeron's tone turned measured. "And what would you have us do? Send a rider to confirm his bones? Declare a war on rumor?"
Rhovan crossed his arms. "If he lives, he should be brought in chains."
Sylas looked at both brothers.
"If he lives," he said, "then he has spent five years on the empire's most violent edge. With no allies. No coin. No orders. And yet reports suggest discipline, taxation, law."
He paused.
"Five years of silence breeds dangerous things."
---
The Ember Guard commander sat unmoving at the room's periphery.
Dressed in matte black, unmarked. His presence meant the meeting was recorded—not by ink, but memory. He would report to no ministry. Only the Flame itself.
When the meeting adjourned, the commander did not leave immediately.
He remained seated until the chamber was empty. Then he descended through a side stair, beneath the Hall, into a vault lit only by a hanging oil lantern.
He removed a scroll from his cloak.
It bore no name, but he recognized the cipher. Blood, inked in code.
His sister's son had written again.
The bastard. Lorien.
The commander's eyes moved across the lines.
Barbarian movements in the Frostspine. New construction on the northern ridge. A river port dredged and fortified. Cultivation reports—brief, buried.
And at the end: a seal. Black wax, broken.
The Ember Guard commander exhaled.
Then, without expression, he lit the scroll and watched it burn.
---
Outside, the capital city of Vael'Zareth seethed.
Rumors moved faster than carts. Whispers of the emperor's death reached even the lowest taverns, and in alley markets, bets were laid on which son would take the throne. Rhovan by sword. Vaeron by scroll. Sylas by shadow. No one spoke of Lorien.
Not yet.
But the soldiers stationed on the outer wall—grizzled men from the Border Wars—had begun asking, quietly, if the Ashen Marches still burned.
And if so... who held the torch?
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