The Crown of Ash

"The throne is not a chair. It is a posture. You do not sit in it; you bear it." —Reflections on Sovereignty, First Empress of Ora

The Crown of Ash
Rina Cassius - The Institute War Room

The sun rose over Seda, but it brought no warmth. It merely illuminated scars.

Rina stood at the head of the oak table, her silk dress ruined, her face still smudged with soot, but her posture rigid. The surviving bureaucrats sat before her, a huddle of frightened birds waiting for the hawk.

"The Treasury is sealed," Master Gilder announced, crossing his arms over his velvet paunch. He was trying to regain his bluster now that the immediate screaming had stopped. "By the laws of the Guild, in the absence of a quorum, no funds can be released. We must wait for the emergency to pass."

Rina looked at him. She didn't shout. She didn't bang the table. She simply looked at him with a terrifying, maternal disappointment.

"Master Gilder," Rina said, her voice soft, dangerous. "Look out the window."

Gilder blinked. "I... I have seen the smoke, my Lady."

"The emergency isn't passing," Rina corrected. "It is settling in. The people outside aren't just refugees. They are your workforce. They are your customers. And right now, they are starving."

"That is tragic," Gilder sniffed. "But the gold—"

"—is useless if the city eats itself," Rina finished. She leaned forward, placing her hands flat on the table. "Here is the new law, Master Gilder. You will open the granaries. You will release the emergency funds to pay for the reconstruction of the lower district. And you will do it by noon."

"And if I refuse?" Gilder puffed up, clinging to his old power. "You have no army, girl. You have a barbarian and a broken soldier."

Rina smiled. It wasn't a predator's smile. It was the smile of a woman who held the keys to the only door in a burning building.

"If you refuse," she said calmly, "I will step out onto that balcony. I will speak to the ten thousand people gathered in the courtyard. And I will tell them that I wanted to feed them, but Master Gilder of the Trade Guild decided the gold was safer in a vault than in their pockets."

Gilder paled. He looked at the window, imagining the roar of the mob.

"You... you wouldn't."

"I am the Emperor of Seda until the sun sets on this crisis," Rina said, her voice ringing with the absolute authority of the Arcana. "Do not test the weight of my crown."

Gilder slumped. "Noon," he whispered. "It will be done."

Rina nodded, dismissing him with a wave. She turned to the map on the wall. She felt the crushing weight of the city settling onto her shoulders—the hunger, the fear, the grief. But she did not buckle. She expanded to meet it.

The Courtyard

The preparations were brief. They traveled light.

Crowstooth stood by the open gates, a small chest of supplies at his feet. He handed Elara a heavy leather satchel.

"Etheric capacitors," the Arch-Mage said. "High-density. Enough to power your cannon for a siege. And maps of the Old Roads leading to the Iron Peaks."

Elara took them, her face grim. "We will find the source, Headmaster. And we will dissect it."

Faren stood nearby, adjusting the straps of a new pack. He looked older. The softness of the scholar was gone, burned away by the loss of his family. He looked hollowed out, but hard. A vessel waiting to be filled with a new purpose.

Aga was tightening the saddle girth on a fresh horse—a massive war-destrier named Baba from the Institute's stables. He checked his gear: Gaidan’s longsword strapped to his back, his hunting knife at his hip, a coil of rope.

"You're leaving," Rina’s voice came from behind him.

Aga turned. She had changed. She had washed the soot from her face and donned a fresh robe of deep indigo—the color of the Senate, but cut with the practicality of a ruler who expected to walk among her people.

"The scent leads West," Aga said. "Toward the mountains. Zalim says the Sanguine are moving on Glimmerdeep."

"Glimmerdeep," Rina mused. "Earthen Domain. If Root corrupts the Deep-Forges..."

"He won't," Aga promised. "I will catch him before he cuts again."

Rina stepped closer. She reached out and took Aga’s calloused hand in hers. Her grip was firm, warm, and grounded.

"I cannot go with you," she said. "My part is here. This city is a wound, Aga. It needs a surgeon, yes. But it also needs a mother."

Aga looked at her. He saw the steel in her spine, the compassion in her eyes. He saw the glow of what his mother, Yaga, had spoken of— balance.

"You are the Emperor now," Aga said, a hint of a smile touching his lips.

"Empress," she corrected softly. "The Emperor implies conquest. I do not seek to conquer Seda. I seek to hold it together."

"Then hold," Aga said. "We will handle the wolves."

Zalim walked up, his black scimitar resting easily on his shoulder. He looked at Rina with a critical, unblinking gaze.

"The coin has landed," Zalim observed. "You have chosen the face of the coin, Lady Cassius. The Law. The Light. The Order."

"Someone has to," Rina said, meeting his strange, glass-like eyes.

"Indeed," Zalim agreed. "And we shall be the Edge. We will cut the path for you."

He bowed, not mockingly this time, but with genuine deference to her station.

Gaidan swung himself into the saddle of his horse, gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm. "Mount up. Daylight is burning."

Aga swung onto his horse. He looked down at Rina one last time.

"Find my son's ghost in your books, Rina," he said. "Find out what he is."

"I will turn every page," she vowed.

The group turned their horses toward the West Gate. They rode out of the Institute, past the stunned refugees, past the smoking ruins of the lower city.

At the crest of the hill, just before the road dipped down toward the plains and the distant, jagged silhouette of the Iron Peaks, Aga looked back.

Rina stood on the steps of the Institute. She was framed by the white pillars, a solitary figure against the backdrop of the broken dome.

She did not look like a Warlord. She did not look like a victim.

She stood with her hands clasped before her, her head high, watching over her broken city. She looked like a tree whose roots held the entirety of the world. An Empress in the ashes, benevolent enough to nurse the dying, but shrewd enough to execute the corrupt. She was the anchor in the storm.

Aga turned forward, the image of her strength burning into his mind.

"To the mountains," he commanded.

And the hunt resumes.