Chapter 9 · free to read
One crown for every empress. They were not trophies. They were the chain itself.
The Ashfast. Older than the empire that named it, and asleep the way a fire in a hearth is asleep.
I stood inside the last minute of the thirty-seventh empress. She spent it lying perfectly still, so that it would finally be over.
Every death I cheat is a debt coming due, and the collector sits under my own throne. I came out of that vault a different kind of careful.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.