The Ashen Throne: A Halloween Crown of Sin and Salvation

di Lucian Reef (Autore)

Lucian Reef, 2025

Four years after the war, heaven fell silent and hell grew tired. From the ruins of Gloamhaven rose a new city—Aurevale, a place built on ash and defiance. Elias, once a scholar and reluctant prophet, now rules as the King of Ash, signing laws instead of prayers. At his side stands Kael—the demon who learned mercy and chose to walk beside men. Together they have forged an uneasy peace: not sanctified, but functional, fragile, human. The new decree, The Law of Mercy, forbids execution and vengeance, commanding the city to rebuild itself with compassion instead of fear. But compassion has a cost, and Aurevale still remembers the sky bleeding red. When the Feast of Rebirth begins, the old Pact stirs again—its glow reawakening beneath joined hands, as if the vow itself were remembering what it once meant. Beneath the council's calm, factions whisper. Some want the old gods back. Some want Kael gone. And one night, the impossible returns: Lucien, the saint who burned, steps once more into the hall—not resurrected, but reborn as a fragment of heaven's collapse, a remnant of the war that cracked the sky. He offers Elias a bargain: "Return my heart, and I will restore the heavens to order." But to return it would mean surrendering the very mercy that rebuilt the world. When the sky reopens—the Second Fall—Kael ascends through fire to close the breach with his own body, while Elias holds the city's law steady beneath his hands. Together they seal the wound in the firmament, but every act of grace takes something from Kael. Each mercy he gives costs him a piece of his fire. The city is saved; Kael begins to fade. In the aftermath, Lucien's Last Light flickers. The man who once called himself saint sheds what remains of his divine deceit. Not resurrection, not redemption—simply atonement. He returns what he stole: charm, light, legend. He dissolves into ash and gives himself to the Black Garden, where flowers drink sin and bloom redder each year. "Let it make something better than I ever was," he says. His end is quiet, not holy—but sincere. By dawn, Elias splits his crown in two—Crown Divided, The Law That Loves. He rewrites the Pact into something mortal and enduring: a rule of mercy, not divinity. Bells ring again, not for judgment but for work. The city breathes. It will make mistakes, but they will be human ones. And as silence returns to the square, Elias blows out the last candle on his desk. A thread of smoke curls upward. "Somewhere," he whispers, "the first candle still burns unseen." That ember carries forward—toward Book 5. The Ashen Throne is a novel of rebuilding—of kings and demons learning how to stay, of love that matures into governance, of guilt turned into law. It is the story of enemies who learned to rule together, of lovers who paid for peace with their own fire. Here, the crown is not a symbol of conquest but of accountability; and the greatest miracle left to this world is that mercy, once feared as weakness, has finally learned to last.

• Autore: Lucian Reef
• Anno edizione: 2025
• Editore: Lucian Reef
• Formato: EPUB2 con DRMFREE
• Lingua: Inglese
• Compatibilità: Tutti i dispositivi (eccetto Kindle)
• Layout: Reflowable
• EAN: 9798232091545