CHAINS OF FIRE AND ROSES đš đš đš đš
CHAPTER 2
Ashes Beneath the Crown
The heat in the Blackreach mines was relentless, the air thick with the smell of sweat, blood, and sulfur. Day and night were meaningless hereâonly shifts, chains, and the lash of the overseer's whip defined time.
Kael Valerius had long learned silence.
He no longer screamed when the whips tore into his back. He no longer spoke unless necessary. His lips, once used to issuing commands to palace guards, now stayed sealed behind cracked skin and bloodied teeth.
The overseers didn't know who he wasâonly that he worked harder than the others, that he never collapsed no matter how cruel the punishment.
But among the slaves, whispers remained.
"That's the Solentan prince. The last flame."
And even though most dared not speak his name aloud, hope clung to it like moss on stone.
Kael had survived three years in darkness with one thought: revenge.
He knew King Thalos thought him deadâor, if alive, so broken he might as well be. Kael had once been clean-shaven, fair-haired, sharp-jawed. Now, he was a shadow of a princeâmuscles hardened by labor, hair long and matted, eyes like coals behind a gaunt face.
But inside, the fire hadn't died.
---
That same day, high above the misery of the mines, Princess Emerald of Karnova stood before a mirror, her handmaiden lacing her corset tightly. Her balcony overlooked the western barracks where the Solentan captives were kept.
From this height, they were ants. Forgotten.
"His Majesty says you'll be presented at the midsummer banquet," the handmaiden said with a smile. "Suitors will come from all over Karnova."
Emerald didn't respond.
She turned her face slightly, watching smoke curl from the far tower.
Her father had raised her to be a queenâstrong, poised, obedient. She had studied war strategies since she was eight, read histories of conquest, learned to read lies in men's faces. She knew what her father wanted: to marry her into another power-hungry house and cement his legacy.
But something lingered in her chest since the day Solenta fell.
The look in Princess Elira's eyes as she was paraded through the squareâdefiant, proud, bloodied. And the boy she'd seen dragged through the dirt outside the Solentan palace gates.
She hadn't known who he was until she heard the name whispered among guards later that night: Kael. The prince.
They had laughed when they spoke of how he clawed at the ground, refusing to fall. How even bloodied and half-conscious, he bit a soldier's hand.
That image had haunted her more than she wanted to admit.
And now, as she stared at her reflectionâflawless, adorned in emerald silkâshe felt a sudden hollowness she couldn't explain.
---
In the Blackreach mines, the rebellion was brewing.
Kael sat on the cold stone floor beside a man named Darek, once a Solentan captain who had survived the fall by pretending to be a lowborn trader. His hair was silver now, and his left arm twisted from an old injuryâbut his mind was sharp.
"Tomorrow, we move," Darek whispered. "Three guard rotations. The tunnel near the north shaft has a blind spot."
Kael nodded slowly. "And the weapons?"
"We've got eight blades smuggled in over two years. No match for an army, but we'll spill enough blood to open the gates."
Kael looked up. "We only need one thing. The king."
Darek frowned. "You're really going to kill him yourself?"
"No," Kael said quietly. "I'll destroy him the way he destroyed us. Piece by piece."
---
That night, Emerald wandered the outer garden alone.
Moonlight bathed the statues of past Karnovan kingsâmen of cruelty, legends soaked in blood. She moved past them like ghosts, her thoughts drifting back to Solenta.
She had never known war firsthand until that invasion. Her father had always told her their enemies were lesser, savage, deserving of conquest.
But when she'd seen the way Solenta had foughtânot for power, but for each otherâshe'd begun to question everything.
She wasn't supposed to care about prisoners.
She certainly wasn't supposed to remember the prince.
Yet some part of herâdeep and buriedâfelt like everything was about to shift.
---
At dawn, Kael woke to the sound of thunderâor so it seemed. But it wasn't thunder.
It was an explosion.
The guards rushed down the tunnel with torches. Screams erupted in the dark.
And Kael smiled.
It had begun.
To Be Continued