Ashes of the crown

POV: Lira ❄️🗝️🔥

The blade in Lira's hand didn't shake.

Not even when Corven tilted his head, amused — as if he weren't facing a Frostblood princess with royal training and a silver dagger an inch from his chest.

"You're braver than your brother gives you credit for," he said, voice smooth as silk.

"I'm also smarter than him," Lira replied. "So unless you want to see if this dagger can carve through your arrogance, answer me."

He smiled. "What would you like to know?"

"Why are you really following Ariya?"

Corven's silver eyes gleamed in the firelight.

"Because she's the only one left who can wake the flame."

"Not good enough," Lira snapped. "You knew where she'd be. You guided her. Fed her visions. Gave her temptations. That's not help. That's manipulation."

Corven didn't deny it.

"Would you prefer I left her lost and wandering? The world won't wait for her to catch up."

"You sound just like Ruvan."

That finally wiped the smile off his face.

Corven took a slow step back, hands raised, calm.

"I'm not your enemy, Princess."

"Then tell me who you really serve."

A flicker passed over his expression.

Then… a whisper of truth.

"I serve the memory of what the Flamebearers were meant to be. Not the version your family helped destroy."

"My family didn't—"

"Your ancestors hunted them. You wear their frost around your throat like it means something noble, but the Frost Court feared fire. So they erased it."

"That's history," Lira said tightly. "Not her fault."

"No," he said, stepping closer. "But she carries more than their flame. She carries his."

Lira blinked. "Whose?"

Corven knelt beside the fire, pulling something from his satchel — a small, brittle scroll sealed in wax.

He tossed it gently to her feet.

"You want truth? Read it."

Lira crouched and peeled back the wax. The scroll unfurled with a brittle crackle. The ink was old, the writing rushed but elegant. She read aloud:

"Infant recovered. Flame marked. Lineage unclear. Possible subject of Project Ember… Unconfirmed frost signature present. Orders: conceal. Relocate to outer forest region. Memory seal required."

She stopped, heart pounding.

"Project Ember?"

Corven nodded. "An experiment. A final attempt to merge frost and flame into one vessel."

Lira looked up sharply.

"You're saying Ariya's part Frostblood?"

"Not part," Corven whispered. "Half."

Silence fell like snow.

Lira stood slowly, scroll trembling in her fingers.

"Does she know?"

"No," Corven said quietly. "Not yet. The memory seal is cracking — that's what the dreams are. The visions. Her past trying to surface."

"And you let her believe she's just some wild orphan with fire in her blood?"

"Would she have trusted me if I told her the truth from the start?"

"She barely trusts you now!"

"Exactly."

Lira backed away, the scroll still clutched in her hand.

"You're using her. Just like he is."

"No," Corven said. "I'm preparing her. Because when the seal finally breaks, she'll learn something far worse than her bloodline."

She stared at him, breath catching.

"What's worse than that?"

He looked at her then, with a flicker of something that might've been sorrow.

"That the Frost Court knows. That your brother knows. And that when the time comes… he will not hesitate to destroy her."

Lira couldn't breathe.

She turned from the fire and began to walk, scroll still clenched, boots crunching against the frosted dirt.

"Where are you going?" Corven called.

"To warn her," she said without looking back. "Before you or my brother get to her first."

Corven didn't follow.

But as she vanished into the woods, he whispered into the wind:

"You may not have time."

And far in the north, Ruvan stood at a frostglass mirror, watching Ariya's image blur with sparks and shadows.

He didn't know why he felt it, but…

"She's about to learn," he whispered. "And when she does… she'll hate me."

But he didn't flinch.

He only whispered,

"Good."