Chapter 29 – Ashes Beneath My Skin

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The night remembers what I forget, the fire, the screams, the old regret. A name once whispered, lost to flame, a lullaby, a broken name. The stars look on with silent grace, but cannot shine upon his face. The wind still weeps through hollow trees, and carries ghosts on every breeze. I walk with ashes in my veins, with quiet oaths and louder pains. A mother's vow, a burning thread. To find the living among the dead.

So let the darkness draw me in, with every scar beneath my skin. I'll chase the truth through smoke and sin… Until I hold my son again.

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I ran, or at least—I tried. Smoke clogged my throat like a fist made of ash, every breath scorching my lungs. The sky above the village burned a sickly orange, choked by the firestorm swallowing everything I once knew. Screams rang through the air—high, broken, frantic—and the stench of blood and burning flesh overpowered everything else.

“Emrys!” I screamed, the name tearing itself from my throat as I crawled across the dirt, my legs refusing to move. Pain flared in my calves. Deep gouges from blades, poorly healed.

I couldn’t stand. I could barely breathe.

Through the curtain of heat and smoke, I saw them, hooded figures cloaked in crimson and black, dragging the children away. One of them held my boy.

“Let him go!” I shrieked, trying to claw my way forward. My nails tore in the dirt, blood welling under them. I—helpless, broken dragged myself through blood and flame to reach him.

He turned… my Emrys. His tiny face was streaked with soot and tears, his mouth forming “mama”. But no sound reached me. Only the roar of fire. Only the laughter of monsters.

And then I saw him, Adriel. My brave, stubborn fool of a man. He lunged out of the shadows with a blade in hand, cutting down two cultists with silent precision before they even saw him coming… For a moment—just a second—I believed he might save our son.

But faith is for the naive.

A glint of steel. A blur of red. His head rolled from his shoulders as if the gods had flicked a finger and erased him.

“No!” I screamed, voice raw as blood spilled across the earth like ink from a shattered bottle.

I didn’t hear the knights when they arrived. I didn’t hear the swords clashing, spells being chanted or the horns blowing. All I saw was the corpse of the man I loved. All I felt was the gaping hole where my child had been.

Then the heat swallowed me. The last thing I saw was ash dancing through the sky like falling stars.

A scream tore from my throat… and I snapped awake.

My lungs dragged in a sharp breath, like I’d just clawed my way out of the fire. I sat up, heart pounding, drenched in sweat clinging to my skin like a second layer, cold despite the warmth of the blankets.

My heart thudded violently in my chest as if trying to break free. Smoke still lingered behind my eyes. Screams echoed faintly in my ears—ghosts from a dream that wasn’t a dream at all.

I sat up slowly, blinking away the haze.

The room was quiet now, only the soft rustling of sheets beside me. I turned my head, my eyes falling on Anne’s sleeping form.

Sixteen years... I’ve raised her for sixteen years.

She breathed softly, curled into the blankets with one hand tucked under her cheek. Innocent. Peaceful.

A life untouched by the horrors that had carved scars into my soul.

She never knew him

And Emrys... my sweet boy never met his sister.

My throat tightened as the weight of memory settled heavily over my chest. I was already pregnant with Anne the day the cultists came.

I remember the fire. The screams. The way they tore Emrys from my arms as the world burned. And I remember the moment Adriel died—charging into the flames to save our son. Brave, foolish, beautiful. One heartbeat… and he was gone.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned my gaze to the nightstand on my right. There it was… my anchor. The necklace.

A thin silver chain, elegant yet simple. But it was the crystal that always stole my breath a shard of purest blue, like a sapphire infused with starlight. And tonight, it glowed faintly. Just faintly.

I reached for it, hands trembling, and held it gently in my palms. The warmth of the crystal seeped into my skin like a whisper, a comfort I hadn’t earned.

Ten years alone. Ten years pretending to smile for Anne while my soul rotted in silence. And then, one sliver of hope. An old friend I thought I’d never meet again, the Head Mage of the Solmorian Empire, offered me something no one else could.

She used my blood, my pain, to craft this charm. A soul-bound tether. A mother’s bond. Through it, she found him.

Emrys was alive.

For the first time since that day, I could breathe again. I kept the necklace close, never letting it out of reach. And for a year, I followed its glow, my heart clinging to every flicker.

But five years ago... it dimmed.

I reached out to her again, desperate. But she said the spell still worked. It wasn’t the charm it was them. The cultists. They were using something stronger, darker, to hide him from me.

Still… I never stopped.

I never will.

I pulled the necklace against my chest, wrapping my arms around it like it was him, my baby boy. I closed my eyes, pressing my lips to the cool surface.

“I’ll find you,” I whispered. “Emrys… no matter what it takes, I’ll find you.”

Placing the necklace back on the stand I stood slowly, careful not to wake Anne, and padded barefoot across the cold marble floor. The soft clinks of my anklet echoed in the silence, a familiar sound in my friend’s manor where I now lived.

The bathroom door opened with a quiet groan. I stepped inside and shut it behind me. Pale candlelight flickered from enchanted sconces, casting golden patterns on the polished walls.

I peeled away the sweat-dampened linen of my nightshirt and let it fall to the floor. Then I turned the brass handle of the shower.

A warm rush of water cascaded down from above, steam blooming instantly in the air. I stepped into it tilting my face up, letting the heat melt the tension from my shoulders. Droplets ran down my face, mingling with the tears I hadn’t let fall in front of anyone.

As I washed, my hands found old familiar scars.

One deep gash started at my right shoulder and ran across my back to the left hip. It had nearly killed me once. A reminder from the battlefield when I still bore the title of knight. Another—an old puncture wound in my left shoulder, its exit mark still ridged on my back.

Those were from a life I buried.

The scars on my legs were newer. Jagged, raw in places, reminders of my husband, of the cultists’ attack sixteen years ago. Of how I failed to stand between them and my son.

My fingers lingered there longer than I meant to.

These legs have walked too many roads. And now, they walk one more.

For ten years, I’ve trained in secret. The sword I once swore never to lift again now rests by my side every day. I train until my muscles scream and my lungs burn. Until my bones ache and my vision blurs.

Because I will not be weak again.

They took my son. My blood. But they will not keep him. Not while I still draw breath

Not while Adriel’s fire still burns in me.

No matter how far they’ve hidden him, no matter how strong the magic shielding him—
I will find him.

I swear it.

After what felt like an eternity I stepped out of the shower, steam curling around my legs before dissipating into the cool morning air. My body still ached faintly, not from the water, but from the weight it bore — years of silence, steel, and sorrow.

Piece by piece, I dressed myself in my old armor.

The polished chestplate, engraved with the sigil I once swore my life to. The reworked pauldrons, shaped now for swifter movement. The leather underlayers, softened by time but still firm. A warrior’s skin — reborn not out of pride, but necessity.

I walked back into the bedroom and paused by the bedside.

Anne was still asleep, her chest rising and falling with the rhythm of peaceful dreams. A soft lock of hair curled against her cheek. She looked so much like her father. A pang settled deep in my chest — the ache of things lost and never known.

He never got to hold her.

And she never got to meet the man whose courage tried to defy fate that night.

I smiled faintly despite the heaviness in my chest and reached for the necklace — the blue crystal glowing softly as if stirred by my thoughts. Wrapping my fingers around it, I took one last look at Anne before slipping out the door.

Downstairs, the scent of parchment and old ink greeted me. The fire in the hearth was low but warm, casting soft amber light across the polished stone floor.

Adonis sat at the counter, legs crossed, a thick leather-bound tome hovering open in front of her. A cup of something herbal steamed beside her elbow, untouched. Her white robes shimmered faintly with rune-thread, glowing in places where protective enchantments had been stitched into the cloth.

I approached quietly, the weight of my armor whispering across the stone.

She didn’t look up.

“Good morning,” I said, my voice soft but steady.

Adonis turned a page with a flick of her finger, then arched a brow without lifting her gaze. “You’re up early.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

She hummed, eyes still scanning the page. “Nightmares again?”

I didn’t answer. She didn’t need me to.

I pulled out a chair across from her and sat, resting my hands on the wooden surface. The necklace’s crystal pulsed faintly against my chest, hidden beneath the collar of my armor.

Grief had its own rhythm. Some mornings it whispered. Others, it screamed.

This morning, it was quiet — but present.

Alwayss present.