His Bride, Her Revenge
Chapter 101: The Queen’s of Ashes

Chapter 101: The Queen’s of Ashes

The sky was bleeding.

Smoke clawed its way upward from the broken remains of the Black Palace, choking the heavens in hues of crimson, ember, and ash. The once-proud spires emblems of power, memory, and rule had fallen, twisted into blackened metal and splintered stone. The earth groaned beneath the weight of gods and monsters, and the wind carried with it not just dust, but the wailing ghosts of everything lost.

Cambria Vale stood at the heart of the ruin.

Her armor was scorched, the gold dulled and fractured. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Every inhale carried the scent of burnt magic and scorched history. The crater before her still glowed with unquenchable flame, black fire licking the air like the tongue of a serpent. It hissed, pulsing with a hunger that hadn’t been sated by destruction.

Her eyes locked on the center of that pit.

Where Knox had stood.

Where he had burned and risen.

The Flame That Devours hadn’t consumed him.

It had crowned him.

Behind her, Maddox stumbled forward, limping on a wounded leg. Blood streaked his brow, and his right pauldron was cracked, barely holding. Still, he moved to her side, ever her shadow, ever her sword.

"Cambria," he said, voice thick with smoke and disbelief. "What we saw down there is what he became..."

She didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

The image burned in her memory: Knox, standing in fire, arms outstretched, his eyes black with ancient fury. Not destroyed, reborn. Every inch of him is carved into something divine and monstrous. A king no longer. Something far worse.

"He didn’t survive the judgment," she finally murmured, her voice brittle. "He became it."

A few meters away, Lucien Vale knelt beside Evelyn’s crumpled body. The elder sister, the tactician, the manipulator now lay catatonic, her eyes empty, her lips slack. The fire had torn through her soul, peeling back layers of deception, ambition, desperation. Her mind was no longer hers.

"She’s breathing," Lucien whispered. "But the Evelyn we knew... she’s gone."

Cambria turned slowly, crouching beside her sister. Evelyn’s hair was matted with ash. Tears real ones had etched clean lines down her face. Not from pain, but from the unbearable weight of truth exposed.

"You wanted to rewrite the world," Cambria said softly. "Instead, you became the example."

The Flame had judged her.

And it had spared her only to leave her broken.

Cambria rose again, shoulders squared. The weight of the crown she no longer wore still pressed down on her.

She was not the Queen of the Empire anymore.

She was the Queen of Ashes.

Hours Later – Eastern Watchtower

The air in the war room was thick with tension. Stone walls held back the bitter cold of the night, but they couldn’t muffle the rising panic.

Lord Heron slammed his fist onto the table, scattering glass shards and spilled ink across ancient maps.

"We should’ve buried him when we had the chance!"

Voices erupted fearful, angry, hopeless.

"He commands fire that doesn’t obey natural law "

"He can twist the dead "

"Cambria should have ended him "

The heavy wooden doors creaked open, and silence swept through the room.

Cambria entered, flanked by Maddox and two of the remaining Vale Sentinels. Her armor had been reworked sleeker, battle-worn, the crest of the Black Phoenix now burned into her chestplate. Her presence radiated quiet fury and loss.

She did not sit.

She looked at them like a queen without needing the title.

"You speak of fear," she said. "Good. Because you should be afraid. What Knox has become is not mortal. Not god. Not a weapon. He’s something between. And he does not intend to rule."

Her voice hardened. "He intends to finish what the Flame That Devours began."

Lord Heron stepped back. "Then what hope do we have?"

Cambria raised her hand. From her palm shimmered an ancient projection of glyphs spinning in the air, mapping the Vale bloodline’s oldest sealed relics. Vaults buried beneath mountains. Temples swallowed by time. One by one, they illuminated.

"The Flame is not the only force left behind by the ancients," she said. "Knox took one crown. But there are others. There are weapons older than this empire. Forgotten, because they were too dangerous. And I intend to find them."

"You’d awaken more cursed relics?" Heron asked.

"No," she said. "I’ll awaken the ones built to end them."

The Dead Expanse – Midnight

The land here was colorless. No life. No sound. Only dust and the occasional broken spine of a fallen titan poking from the ground like forgotten bones.

Knox stood alone, a figure carved from fire and shadow. His cloak billowed behind him in a wind that hadn’t touched anything else in miles. His skin gleamed with obsidian brilliance, veins running like rivers of flame beneath.

Sophia Drake stepped into the clearing behind him. Her once-elegant robes were burned and tattered, half her face marked by the fire she’d barely survived. Madness danced in her eyes like sparks waiting for oxygen.

"You did it," she said. "You took the last thing they feared."

Knox didn’t look at her. "They made me beg. Bleed. Bow."

His voice echoed across the barren plains, deeper than before.

"Now they’ll do the same."

He extended his hand.

From the ash around him, they rose figures stitched together from soot and ruin, their bodies encased in the same dark fire that had anointed him. An army of ash-born. No hearts. No fear. No mercy.

Sophia shivered with pleasure. "Cambria will come for you."

"She always does," he said with a smile. "But this time... I won’t kill her."

He turned.

"I’ll complete her."

Watchtower Citadel – Vault 7

Evelyn lay in a sealed chamber beneath layers of reinforced stone and memory-weave sigils. Her eyes fluttered, but no words left her lips. Monitors tracked her brain patterns erratic but alive.

Cambria stood outside, watching.

"She still holds the neural codes to Subject One," Maddox said. "If we can extract them..."

"We can reboot the prototype," Cambria finished. "Not as a weapon for war. But as the key to ending this."

He looked at her. "You really think you can interface with it?"

She didn’t answer immediately.

Then: "It was made from my bloodline. My DNA. My pain. If anyone was meant to wield it it’s me."

He exhaled, not in agreement, but resignation.

"Then we better hope it’s enough."

The alarms were shrill. Red light strobed through the vaults.

Cambria turned sharply, her heart thudding.

A soldier burst through the chamber door, eyes wide.

"My Queen, he’s here. At the gates."

Maddox drew his blade. "Already?!"

Another tremor shook the foundation.

"No," Cambria whispered. "He’s not at the gates."

The doors thick, runed steel groaned as heat melted their locks.

They split open.

Knox stood there face half-shadow, half-god. The fire behind him lit the hall like a hellstorm. His eyes met hers.

And he smiled.

"I’ve come for my crown," he said.

"But not the one you think."

Cambria stood her ground, hand hovering over the interface that linked her to Subject One.

Knox’s voice deepened, monstrous and divine.

"You’re the last piece I need, Cambria."

She narrowed her eyes. "You want to destroy the world."

"I want to remake it," he corrected. "And I want you beside me."

He extended his hand.

The Flame That Devours flared brighter.

"Together, we are the final Chapter."

Knox has not come to conquer Cambria

He has come to complete her.

Not through battle.

But by merging their divine essence the Flame That Devours with the remnants of the God Engine within her.

If they fuse, the world ends.

Unless Cambria can end him first.