Chapter 3 Ashes Beneath the Throne

The air in Westonia was thick with mourning, yet no one dared speak aloud the truth.

Queen Alendra of the House Meriven, once the radiant jewel of the Westonian court, had been publicly declared a traitor and executed. The bells had tolled, the people had wept, and her memory had been sealed beneath a tide of court-sanctioned shame.

But deep beneath the palace walls, in a sanctum known only to a dead king and a few trusted hands, she lived.

A ghost with breath.

A widow with fire in her veins.

It had all begun with a whisper-one that traveled the echoing marble halls of the palace, cloaked in veils and venom. Whispers that Queen Alendra had tampered with the royal seal, intercepted diplomatic letters, and conspired with spies from the Eastern Kingdom of Valemir to usurp the court's authority.

The crime was not hers.

It was Zazeal's orchestration.

Alendra's only offense was truth-truth she dared speak aloud to a king who was already slipping into shadow.

She had accused Queen Laurie of poisoning Thorian's goblet. She had urged the council to investigate changes in the king's behavior-his lapses in memory, his violent moods, his growing isolation from the court.

But in a kingdom where appearances were worth more than loyalty, her warnings were branded as treason.

Zazeal had seized the opportunity. With forged documents and falsified testimonies, he had the court convinced Alendra had met secretly with envoys from Valemir and plotted a rebellion to install her son, Azeal, on the throne.

The charges: treason, conspiracy, and sedition.

The sentence: death.

And yet, before the gallows tightened its grip, King Thorian-shaken by guilt, love, and a fragment of sanity-had spared her in secret, hiding her in the deepest vault beneath the throne room where the royal relics of their ancestors lay gathering dust. There she had remained, alive but unreachable.

And above, her kingdom rotted.

Now, in the dead of night, Alendra stood behind the stone lattice that opened into the hidden sanctum's only window. From that view, she could see the pale moon hovering above the towers of Westonia. Her once-lush kingdom had turned gray and joyless under Zazeal's cold rule. Laurie, robed in black and crowned with deceit, now sat where Alendra once presided.

Alendra pressed a hand to the cold stone wall.

"Forgive me, Thorian," she whispered. "I should have run with him. I should have stayed gone."

But running had never been her way.

Her thoughts returned to her son. Azeal-last seen fleeing the capital in a butcher's cloak, riding through the catacombs like a ghost from a burning past.

He was out there. Alive, she hoped.

Free.

She touched the locket at her neck-a keepsake from the night of his escape. It held his first lock of hair, sheared by her trembling hands the day he was named crown prince. The locket warmed faintly in her palm as if her son's heartbeat still lived within it.

Suddenly, footsteps echoed from the stairs beyond her door. Not the slow, cautious steps of a loyal servant.

Heavier. Firmer.

They were coming.

She stepped back, her fingers tightening around the dagger hidden beneath her shawl.

The door creaked open.

It was not a guard.

It was Zazeal.

He stepped into the sanctum like a serpent entering a grave. His robes shimmered with the blood-red sigil of the Meriven line-a mockery, for he had no right to it.

"Mother," he said, voice like silk drawn across steel.

"You should not call me that," Alendra answered coldly. "You were never mine."

Zazeal's lips curled into a smile. "You wound me. I came bearing concern."

"For what? The state of your soul?"

"For your... comfort. You see, I recently discovered something curious. A journal, buried deep within Father's study. One he kept in his final months. He wrote of you often-how you warned him, how you begged him to act."

Alendra's eyes narrowed. He stepped closer, examining the chamber walls, the relics, the old tomes.

"He said he believed you," Zazeal continued. "Right before he slipped into madness."

"He saw through your lies too late," Alendra spat.

"And yet, he died all the same."

A long silence passed.

Then Alendra asked, "What do you want, Zazeal?"

He turned, dark eyes glinting in the candlelight. "To tie up loose ends. And I find it untidy to leave one ghost walking beneath my throne."

He unsheathed a dagger-her own blade, taken from her private chamber years ago. The one she had used to knight Azeal in secret when he turned thirteen. It shimmered with a cruel irony.

"You will not have my blood," she said.

He laughed. "Your blood is old. It holds no more power. But your death... your true death... that, dear Alendra, sends a message."

He stepped forward.

She did not cower.

Instead, she turned and walked to the statue of the first queen of Westonia, carved in granite and iron. She knelt, lips moving in silent prayer.

"I will see you in the next life," she said, eyes on the heavens.

But the dagger never fell.

From the shadows beyond the chamber, a voice hissed.

"My king!"

It was the queen-Laurie.

Zazeal froze.

Laurie swept into the room, her beauty undimmed by age, her eyes cold as frost.

"What is this?" she asked sharply.

"An old debt," Zazeal replied.

Laurie's gaze flicked to Alendra.

Then to the dagger.

"Kill her, then," she said. "She's lived too long."

But Zazeal paused.

Alendra saw it-the flicker of hesitation. The war between ambition and the ghost of a conscience.

And she smiled.

"You'll never be half the man your brother is," she said softly.

That did it.

Zazeal raised the blade.

But Laurie stopped him.

"Wait," she said. "There's a better way." She turned to Alendra with a cruel smile. "We'll send her head to Deravelle. Let the hunted prince see what awaits him."

Zazeal lowered the dagger.

Alendra, cornered and beaten, held her chin high.

"You think death will silence me," she said. "But it will only make him louder."

Zazeal stepped back. "Then let him scream."

And with that, the two traitors left the chamber.

Alendra stood alone again. For now. But she knew her end would come soon.

Unless Azeal returned.