Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion
Chapter 186: Prophet Made King

The city was quieter now.

Not peaceful.

Never that.

But the howling had stopped.

Gone were the riots that once thundered through the Grand Quarters. Gone were the burning banners of Houses that no longer existed, the ash-thick air of rebellion, and the crimson stains across the palace marble.

Even the Crucible—once a blood-soaked cathedral of screams—sat dormant today.

Now Esgard breathed in silence.

A wounded breath.

A city re-stitched with trembling hands.

The skyline bore the scars of war.

Charred spires reached like fingers from broken knuckles. The southern ward had collapsed entirely—left as rubble when the gods' chosen had descended like a hammer from heaven.

The statues of the old councilors that had once lined the Promenade of Blood had been replaced, too.

Not with heroes.

But with empty plinths.

A silent declaration: none were worthy.

And at the highest point of Esgard, beneath the throne tower built to oversee the nine noble districts, the Council Chamber of the Nine sat heavy with new blood.

Not everyone had returned.

Some thrones remained unclaimed, sealed beneath rune-lock and mourning silk. House Volmir's banner had been torn from its brass ring, Lady Alurelle's skull still resting in the Sanctum's ruins.

House Durnhal's debts had bled them dry. House Yvain had fractured after the fall of the Fifth Chair.

But most notable of all—

The Seventh Chair stood vacant.

The Sanctum of Light had not sent a representative.

Not since the death of Grand Priest Eltharion.

Some said the gods had withdrawn their favor. Others claimed their fury brewed quietly beyond the mountains, gathering in temples untouched by mortal law. Some whispered of Mark—though none dared speak his name aloud—wandering the godplanes like a storm unbound.

Whatever truth lingered, none had come to contest the emptiness.

And in the seat once denied him…

Ian sat.

He did not wear the colors of House Elarin, though the crest still hung behind him in velvet black.

He did not wear armor.

Only a black coat that swept to his ankles, lined in steel-thread and stitched with void that pulsed faintly when he moved. His hair was longer now—tied back in a sharp tail—and his gray eyes were sharper than steel.

He said little.

But when he spoke, the chamber listened.

Not out of courtesy.

Not even out of loyalty.

But because they feared him.

Not the man. Not the killer who had once clawed from the pits with bloodied hands. Not the demon who had turned Esgard's bones to ash.

They feared the thing that sat behind his eyes.

They feared the Sovereign.

---

"Lord Ian," came a voice—measured, clipped. "You've reviewed the petition from House Kaelthorn?"

Ian did not look at the speaker.

He already knew it was Velmira Saan, the Sixth Chair. Of the old guard, she was one of the few who had weathered the purges intact, her luxury fleets rebranded as "stabilization efforts."

She had replaced the silks with a dark-blue uniform, military-cut, elegant.

"Their request is denied," Ian said.

He didn't raise his voice.

Didn't need to.

"The Beast Trade is abolished. Any attempt to revive it is an act of sedition."

Lady Velmira frowned, but said nothing more.

Across from her, Archmage Serel Vaunt—a reclusive man with ink-stained fingers and a half-stitched robe—nodded faintly.

"The arcane wards along the northern slums are failing," he murmured. "Too much rot in the ley lines. If the lead council wishes, I can reassign a Circle of Menders."

Ian turned to him.

"Reassign ten."

The Archmage blinked. "That's… excessive."

Ian's gaze sharpened.

"The dead stay dead. I want no wraith bloom along the boundary again. Not now."

He said it like a blade.

Not a declaration.

A law.

The room stilled.

Then a soft cough from the far end broke the silence. Mistress Thalia Virex, Ninth Chair and spymaster, flicked her gaze up from her endless scrolls. The lines near her eyes deeper now, her once-silken voice roughened by months without sleep.

"The Redwater remnants are rallying again," she said. "There's talk of a 'True Blood' successor to the Lionarde claim."

Ian didn't respond.

Not immediately.

He let the weight of her words sit in the room like rot.

Then—

"I'll handle that...personally," he said.

A silence followed that. Heavy. Final.

The session wound down.

Decrees signed. Executions authorized. Tax reforms reluctantly approved. It all felt… distant. Mechanical.

This was not the theater of power Esgard had once thrived on.

This was a graveyard wearing a crown.

And Ian?

He was its sovereign.

---

He stood alone in the upper chamber long after the others had gone.

The silence here was real. Sacred.

Velrosa's chair—one she sat on for mere minutes—had not been replaced.

He refused.

It sat at his left, its obsidian arms untouched. There was no plaque. No epitaph.

Only memory.

Ian stared at it.

Minutes passed.

Maybe hours.

A breath behind him. Then another.

He didn't turn.

He already knew.

"You still keeping ghosts for company?" Eli's voice was quiet. Tired.

Ian answered without looking back.

"They're more honest than the living."

Eli walked forward slowly, leaning heavier on his cane than he used to. His left arm was still wrapped from the elbow down in silver-threaded bandages. The wound had never fully healed. He refused magical treatment. Said it wasn't the pain that bothered him—only the reminder.

"You know," Eli said, dragging a chair across the stone and slumping into it, "most men take power and start building a world."

Ian's voice was dry.

"I'm not most men."

"No," Eli said. "You're not."

They sat in silence a while.

Then, Eli chuckled.

"I remember when you were first brought to me, how time flies"

Another pause.

Eli leaned back, eyes scanning the room.

"This city looks different."

"It should."

"No, I mean… you look different."

Ian turned slightly.

Not a full glance.

But enough.

Eli shrugged. "It's in your eyes. There's nothing left in them."

"There's purpose," Ian replied.

"That's not the same as life."

They sat longer in silence.

The shadows from the stained-glass dome above had begun to stretch—turning violet, then gray, then nearly black. The city was drifting into dusk.

Eli's golden eye flicked to him. "She said, don't rot here, Ian."

Silence.

Not even the wind dared disturb it.

And then—

Eli stood.

"What do you want...for this world?" He asked, voice low, real.

No mockery.

No command.

Just truth.

"...Silence."

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