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Story: Ashes to Ashes

Equal to equal.

“Your students recognized my true nature through coordinated magical assault,” I say, voice carrying across the arena without effort—royal projection that doesn’t require shouting. “I responded appropriately to an attack on royal bloodline.”

“I believe we need to have a conversation,” he says quietly, though his tone carries the weight of someone whose careful political neutrality just became infinitely more complicated.

Before anyone can process the full implications, the Academy’s warning bells begin to toll. Not class change chimes—the deep, resonant notes that mean external threat approaching at speed.

Through crystal windows, I see them in the distance.

Figures approaching Academy grounds. Dozens of them. Moving in perfect military formation with banners that identify their courts—Seelie gold and white, Unseelie silver and black, and something else I don’t recognize flying emerald green.

“What are those?” I ask, something in my chest tightening with recognition I don’t understand.

“Court delegations,” Kieran says grimly. “They felt what just happened here. Royal magic awakening registers across both realms.”

They’re coming for me. Armed. Organized. With the kind of precision that speaks of contingency plans activated.

The approaching forces spread into siege formations—Seelie taking high ground, Unseelie claiming shadow positions, the unknown green banners moving to flank both groups. Professional military deployment that suggests they’ve drilled this scenario.

“Well,” I say, watching three separate armies converge on Academy grounds like pieces on a chess board moving toward inevitable conflict, “this should be interesting.”

The platform beneath us rises until we’re level with the approaching delegations, visible through the crystal dome. Not hiding. Not running. Not apologizing for what I am.

Standing our ground.

“Let them come,” I say, voice carrying across Academy grounds with supernatural clarity that makes windows vibrate in their frames. “About time someone explained why they thought genocide was good policy.”

Kieran’s smile turns predatory as shadows pool around his feet. Orion’s magic flares with protective heat that I feel against my skin like a physical embrace. Finnian’s eyes gleam with fascination and something deeper—the recognition that everything he’s studied about court politics just became obsolete.

The war was always coming.

Now I’m ready to fight it.

Even if I have no fucking idea what I’m doing.

23

KIERAN

The Academy groundshave become a battlefield.

I stand beside Ash’s platform, shadows writhing around my boots as court delegations descend like carrion birds scenting blood.

Three banners I haven’t seen together in centuries—Seelie silver and white, Unseelie black and crimson, Wild emerald and gold—snap in the wind that carries the metallic taste of imminent violence.

Three armies. Not diplomatic envoys—siege formations. Weapons disguised as ceremony.

The ancient protections fail in real-time—golden ward-lines cracking along Academy walls like breaking cathedral windows while students huddle in dormitory windows, watching centuries of shelter dissolve as Academy neutrality dies a visible death.

Through the shadow-link that connects me to my father’s throne, agony explodes through my skull without warning.

Blood erupts from my nose in dark streams that stain my shirt collar. My knees buckle as ice picks drive through both temples simultaneously, the psychic intrusion tearing through mental defenses like they’re made of paper.

Frost spreads from my feet in jagged, erratic patterns—shadows writhing around my ankles as magical control fragments under psychological assault.

But it’s not just pain—it’s images. Kestra in her tower study, surrounded by books about court unification, completely absorbed in research she believes will heal the world. Ink stains on her fingers. Light in her eyes when she discovers some new historical connection.

So close, my son. So very close to completing your service.

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