CHAPTER 61: THE LAST EMBER

The month-long barrage had become a rhythm of thunder.

Day and night, Dawnhaven’s guns roared across the Ashlands, each shell arching in a fiery trail before hammering against Emberhold’s barrier.

At first, the dome of Crucible light had flared defiantly, glowing with volcanic brilliance after every impact.

Mothers in Emberhold told their children the sound was fireworks, merchants swore Veltharion’s flame was eternal.

But slowly, inevitably, the glow dimmed. The cracks spread.

On the thirty-first evening, as the sun bled down behind the volcano’s rim, the rhythm changed.

The next barrage should have been another in the endless drumbeat. Instead, the barrier screamed.

A high, keening wail rolled across the city as fractures spidered outward like glass under strain.

Chunks of Crucible light splintered and fell, raining like embers across rooftops.

The streets broke into chaos.

Null priests dedicated to the worship of the Crucible collapsed in the plazas, wailing prayers that faltered into silence.

Citizens stampeded, clutching children, relics, anything that could be carried into cellars that would not save them. Fires lit the night sky as panic swept through every district.

For the first time in living memory, Emberhold felt mortal.

Veltharion stood on the dais of obsidian, the Ember Court in uproar around him.

"It’s impossible!" an elder shrieked. "The barrier has never broken!"

"They’ve unearthed some Eidolon relic, nothing less could..."

"No relic fires for a month without ceasing!" cried the Grand Elder, sparks trembling between his fingers. "This is not artifact. This is industry."

The chamber devolved into panic until Veltharion’s fist cracked the stone arm of his throne.

"Silence."

The word rolled like volcanic fire. The magi stilled, but terror clung to their eyes.

"They are draining us," the Grand Elder whispered, voice breaking.

"Each volley leeches our strength. We pour into the barrier, and the guns undo it again. We are bled dry."

Another lord slammed his staff down. "Then we pour deeper! The Crucible will answer us!"

Veltharion’s gaze turned molten.

"The Crucible answers the strong, not the desperate. Already its flame strains. Each leyline you burn to patch the dome weakens us further. Soon there will be nothing left to fight with, even if the barrier holds."

The chamber fell to a dreadful silence. For the first time in centuries, the lords of Ignarion looked at their master not with reverence, but as men cornered by inevitability.

Another barrage landed. The mountain shook. Sparks of Crucible light rained down into the city like dying stars.

Veltharion’s jaw clenched. "Damn that Dawnhaven rat," he hissed. "Damn him and his steel."

But even he could feel it: the ember of fear glowing in every heart around him.

He had no choice now... As much as he might protest the idea. If the barrier fell, it would be the end of their house.

A heavy sigh escaped the aging patriarch’s lips as he gave the order. An order he knew would do nothing but buy them time.

"Very well.... Send every Magi and Magus in training to the barrier. We must fix the cracks before it is too late...."

Outside the walls of Emberhold the trenches stretched for miles, veins of mud and timber carved into the Ashlands.

Rain slicked the walls, smoke and ash clung to every breath, rats fattened on crumbs stolen from sleeping soldiers.

Weeks had stripped the men to the bone.

Boots rotted, rations grew stale, their eyes hollowed by sleepless nights.

Yet still the guns roared.

In this barren land, only the supplies brought from Dawnhaven’s fertile fields sustained this army.

And yet they often rotted under the battlefield conditions before the men ever had the chance to consume them.

Reinforcement and resupply were spread thin. Caravans took time to cross the wastes.

Meanwhile, the ever-present ash they had dug into was enough to suffocate their souls.

In his dugout, Caedrion bent over parchment, trembling hand sketching sigils for something new.

Vessels that could hold his Architect’s spark, cells that might free the cannons from his constant touch.

But the lines blurred.

His temples throbbed with the ache of overdrawn leylines.

Without his infusions, the breeches would seize, the guns would fall silent, and Ignarion’s barrier would mend.

The thought lashed him upright. He shoved himself to his feet, scattering designs across the floor.

Sword at his hip, he climbed out into the night.

The trenches flickered with lanterns.

Shovels dug, rifles gleamed, men hauled powder and shell through the sucking mud.

Above them, the barrier flared again, cracked wider, glowing like broken glass under firelight.

Caedrion mounted the earthen rampart, mud clinging to his boots.

He raised his sword, steel gleaming red in the firelit haze, and his voice thundered down the trench lines:

"Do not relent! Double your efforts! We cannot give them an inch, or they will mend the damage!"

Gaunt faces turned toward him, eyes dulled by hunger and exhaustion but lit now with a spark.

"Look there!" He thrust his blade toward the fractured dome. "The Crucible’s pride is failing! Its lion cowers in a cage of its own making!"

His chest swelled, voice rising to a roar that shook the ramparts.

"History will not remember our hunger! Not the mud, not the rats, not the weariness in our bones. History will remember that here, before Emberhold’s walls, we did not falter!"

The trenches erupted in cheers, rifles and spades raised skyward.

"We pressed forward!" Caedrion bellowed. "We will break the indomitable! And here we end the tyranny of Ignarion once and for all!"

He swept his sword wide, sparks flying from the steel.

"Null, nullborn, and magi alike, no longer divided, no longer slaves to bloodline! On this field, all men stand equal. And we will carve that truth into their bones!"

The men roared louder, their voices rolling like thunder across the plain. Even the most exhausted soldiers shouted, fire kindled in eyes that had been hollow a moment before.

"Do not hesitate!" Caedrion thundered, voice like a war-drum. "Show them no mercy, for if we falter here, none shall be shown to us!"

A volley of guns answered him. The night split apart with fire.

On the horizon, the barrier shrieked, spiderweb fractures spreading wider, brighter. Emberhold’s glow flickered under the strain.

And in the trenches, where despair had festered for a month, fire blazed anew.

The guns began to double their efforts.

And within Emberhold, the Ember Court fell into chaos.

Lords whispered of sorties, of retreat, of calling allies who would not come. Veltharion silenced them with a glare that burned hotter than the Crucible itself.

"No one leaves. No one bargains. We hold."

But even as he spoke, the cracks widened, and sparks fell like burning rain. The age of Ignarion was ending, one shell at a time.

And then finally it came....

The night trembled as Dawnhaven’s guns continued to thunder.

This time the barrier did not shriek... it shattered.

A sound like breaking crystal rang across the Ashlands.

Light blazed white-hot, then fragmented into a thousand shards that rained down in fiery arcs.

The dome that had been used to guard Emberhold for generations during times of crisis was gone.

At first there was silence.

Then the screams began.

Within the city, what little semblance of order had suddenly vanished along with the once mighty barrier.

Those who had been panicking before now resorted to riots.

Priests, families, and even the city guard began to break ranks. And fight over what little scraps remained.

And yet the next barrage landed before the people could even make a flight to the hills.

Shells shrieked overhead, exploding against towers and walls with cataclysmic force.

Stone disintegrated into clouds of dust and molten shards, iron gates buckled under the rain of fire, and whole districts were swallowed in flame.

The Ember Court shook with every impact.

The obsidian pillars quivered, dust sifting down from the vaulted ceiling.

Magi who had once strutted like gods now flinched like frightened animals at each detonation.

"It is gone..." whispered the Grand Elder, tears streaking his ash-stained face. "The barrier is gone."

"They will storm us," cried another. "We must send envoys, we must sue for peace!"

"Peace?" snarled a younger magus, hair wild, eyes bloodshot.

"There is no peace with Dawnhaven now. They will break us, grind us into ash, and salt the very name of Ignarion from the histories!"

The chamber dissolved into madness, voices clashing like steel.

Some called for desperate counterattacks, others for surrender, still others raved of summoning the Crucible’s full flame even if it consumed them all.

Veltharion rose slowly from his throne.

His once-imposing form seemed gaunt, hollow, his eyes burning with a feverish light.

"Silence," he said again. But this time the word carried no command. It was a plea.

The magi stilled only because the thunder outside drowned them.

Veltharion staggered down from the dais, his hand dragging along the cracked obsidian.

His lips trembled as he stared toward the distant glow of the burning city through the high windows.

"My city..." he whispered. "My Emberhold... the pride of the Crucible..."

A shell landed close... so close the floor heaved and a section of wall cracked.

Dust and flame belched into the chamber.

Lords screamed, robes aflame, as servants rushed to smother the fire.

Veltharion did not move. He laughed. A broken, jagged laugh that silenced even the surrounding chaos.

"Do you hear it?" he cried, voice echoing in the chamber.

"The song of steel! The hymn of Dawnhaven’s cannons! That rat Caedrion... he gnaws at the roots of the mountain, and the whole tree falls. Hah! Hah!"

The lords looked at him in horror. Their master, the Lion of the Crucible, had become a madman.

Veltharion tore his circlet from his head and flung it across the chamber, the obsidian crown shattering against the floor.

"There is no Crucible! No flame eternal! Only ash! Ash!"

His voice cracked into a scream, tears and spittle running down his face.

"The age of Ignarion is ended! The age of ash and ruin has come!"

Another shell struck, the chamber convulsed, and the once-mighty Ember Court dissolved into panicked flight.

But Veltharion remained, laughing and sobbing in equal measure, as the thunder of Dawnhaven’s victory rolled ever closer.