Page 48 of Ashes to Ashes

“Share her?” Fire explodes from my skin before I can contain it. “Every instinct I have says to burn anyone who looks at her wrong.” My hands clench into fists, actual embers flaring between my fingers. “But if she needs more than one of us—if her power demands it...”

I force the words through gritted teeth, each one tasting like ash and necessity. “Then I’ll learn to play nice with shadows and starlight. For her.”

The oath mark burns hotter, and I realize it’s not just binding me to protect her—it’s teaching me that sometimes protection means sacrifice. Even the sacrifice of exclusivity.

“Your blood sings a different song than your words, darling boy,” The Morrigan observes with that maddening, knowing smile.

“Three consorts.” The words taste like destiny and damnation. “Fire, shadow, and light all serving the same queen.”

“The prophecy demands its own cruel balance,” she replies, voice like dark chocolate and midnight promises. “Wild fire, shadow’s whisper, light’s gentle touch—all woven together through royal blood like threads in a tapestry none can unpick.”

“And if we tear each other apart fighting for her attention?”

Her smile turns wicked as sin and twice as beautiful. “Then you’ll discover what it truly means to serve something greater than your own desires, sweet boy.”

The Academy rises before us, its impossible architecture shifting in the moonlight. A solitary figure moves through the pre-dawn darkness, practicing combat forms. Even at this distance, I recognize Ash. But these aren’t human movements—they’re royal battle forms, biological imperatives encoded in bloodline magic. Watching her execute them is like watching the dead walk.

My breath stops entirely. She moves like every fantasy I’ve ever had about wild queens and thorned crowns. Like she was born to rule me, to let me serve her fire with mine. The Cauldron burns against my ribs, recognizing its mistress even when she doesn’t know herself.

The blood oath mark flares with sudden, searing heat. My vision blurs, then sharpens. For a moment—just a heartbeat—I see her not as she appears, but as she could be. Taller, stronger, with thorn patterns spiraling across skin that glows with green-gold light.

Royal. Wild. Power incarnate.

And beautiful. So achingly beautiful it makes my chest hurt.

The Cauldron mark blazes across my chest like a brand, ancient magic recognizing something in the Academy’s wards that makes my bones sing with recognition. Through the artifact’s connection to life force itself, I feel her—not just her location, but the moment of her awakening.

Royal blood, finally free,the Cauldron pulses with pure joy.The bloodline we thought lost forever.

The weapon doesn’t just heal—it remembers. Every Wild Court royal it’s ever touched, every ceremony it’s witnessed,every sacred bond it’s helped forge. And right now, it’s screaming with certainty that she’s not just any changeling.

She’s THE changeling. The one we’ve been waiting for.

The one my family died trying to protect.

The Cauldron shows me her true heritage in flashes of green fire and thorned crowns, of power so vast it could reshape the courts or destroy them entirely.

She’s coming home,it whispers.And she’s going to need you to remember what you were born for.

“What do you want out of all this?” I ask The Morrigan suddenly. “You don’t just show up after centuries because you’re concerned about court politics.”

The Morrigan watches with ancient eyes that hold secrets older than starlight. A smile curves her lips—genuine warmth breaking through her mask of otherworldly authority.

“Perhaps,” she says, voice carrying smoky amusement and something deeper, “even ancient hearts grow weary of eternal solitude. Sometimes the darkness itself craves... companionship.”

I stare at her, caught completely off-guard. For a moment, I’m struck speechless—this ancient warrior goddess wants friendship? “You honor me,” I say simply, no jokes, no deflection. Then my grin returns, genuine this time. “But if we’re doing this, we’re doing it right. Dinner with Ash tomorrow—let me show you both what real Wild Court hospitality looks like.”

I say nothing more, unable to look away from the distant figure whose existence has suddenly become inextricably entangled with my own through an oath older than memory.

Guardian to her royal. Root-Bound to her thorn-marked. Flame to her earth. Bound by blood that remembers what minds forget.

And possibly sharing her with that cold shadow-bastard Kieran and scholarly Finnian, if the prophecy demands it. The thought should enrage me.

Instead, heat pools low in my belly, the oath mark pulsing with ancient knowledge.

In the distance, her training form falters as she clutches her own arm where identical patterns lie hidden. Our magic calls to each other, already forming connections without permission or ritual.

On the western tower, frost spreads across stone as Kieran materializes from shadows, his attention fixed on the same woman.

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