The throne room no longer felt like a place of rule.
It felt like a furnace sealed beneath stone.
King Vaelrion sat upon the high throne of Avaros, but the marble beneath him was beginning to darken — faint veins of soot spreading outward from where his hands rested.
The court no longer murmured freely.
It waited.
"My king," Chancellor Edrin began carefully, kneeling lower than protocol required, "the western provinces report unrest. Villages abandon their homes at the sight of royal banners."
Vaelrion did not move immediately.
"Do they abandon plague," he asked quietly, "or authority?"
Silence.
The Flame stirred inside him.
He could feel it beneath the palace — no longer distant.
Closer.
Integrated.
"They fear the burnings," Edrin admitted.
Vaelrion rose.
His cloak, once royal crimson, now seemed darker — almost charred at the edges though never touched by fire.
"Fear," he said softly, stepping down the marble steps, "is not cruelty."
"It is clarity."
He stopped before the chancellor.
"Love made me hesitate."
The court shifted uneasily.
"Fear does not."
The words did not echo.
They pressed.
He placed a hand upon Edrin's bowed head.
Blue-black flame flickered beneath his skin.
The chancellor gasped once — then stilled.
When Vaelrion removed his hand, Edrin's eyes were different.
Devotion without doubt.
"You are our salvation," Edrin said evenly.
Vaelrion returned to the throne.
But he did not sit immediately.
He looked across the hall at the carved statues of past rulers — kings remembered for diplomacy, prosperity, expansion.
Weak men, he thought.
Men who ruled with permission.
"I will not beg loyalty," he said to the silent chamber.
"I will become inevitable."
The High General, who had known Vaelrion since youth, finally spoke.
"The people speak of you in new ways, Your Majesty."
Vaelrion's gaze sharpened slightly.
"Oh?"
"They no longer call you simply king."
The Flame warmed at his spine.
"They say you walk through fire untouched."
"That ash follows your steps."
"That shadows bend when you pass."
A pause.
"They call you… the King in black."
The chamber felt colder despite the heat below.
Vaelrion considered this.
Ash.
What remains after purification.
After weakness burns away.
"And the rest?" he asked quietly.
The general hesitated.
"They say… the king in Black."
Silence fell thick as smoke.
Vaelrion finally sat upon his throne.
And for the first time —
He smiled.
Not in joy.
Not in madness.
In acceptance.
"Then let them speak it," he said softly.
Below the palace, the Flame surged violently.
Its light deepened — no longer red, no longer blue —
But black at its core.
And in that moment, something irreversible settled into him.
Vaelrion was no longer a king corrupted by grief.
He was something reborn through it.
Not a ruler of necessity.
Not a grieving husband.
But a sovereign shaped by ash and shadow.
The Ashen King of Black.
And far beyond the capital, in forests and ruins and forgotten caverns —
Other fragments trembled.
Because their host had chosen fully.
And choice, once committed, does not easily turn back.