Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign

The words hung in the air like a dropped blade.

The Ukai Ruler is dying.

For a moment, nothing in the cave moved.

The lanterns creaked. The waterfall roared faintly in the distance.

Elin just stared at Alan.

Her chair creaked as she leaned forward.

"What do you mean, dying?" she asked.

No joke in her voice now. No lazy edge.

Just sharp.

Alan held her gaze.

"I mean his body is failing" he said. "You know... The usual way. The way it happens to people who live too long."

"That's not an answer." Her fingers curled against the table. "Was he poisoned? Is this an assassination? Some new Nyx strain? A curse? Is it... Vor? Tell me you did not drag yourself into my cave to say something as vague as his body is failing."

"If it were poison" Alan said, "Ukai's healers would have burned it out. If it were a disease, they would have isolated it. And... If it were Vor, none of us would be here."

He watched her for a beat, then added, quietly:

"It's none of that."

Elin's eyes narrowed.

"So what is it?"

Alan drew a slow breath.

"Old age."

The word felt wrong in Raizen's ears.

Elin almost laughed. Almost.

"Old age" she repeated flatly. "Impossible."

"Exactly" Alan said.

The silence that followed felt heavier than before.

Raizen swallowed.

He heard about the Ukai ruler. A thin man with lines around his eyes and a calm weight in his bearing. Old, yes. But not fragile. Not weak.

In a world with Eon, with healers, constructs and Sovereigns, people did not simply... Grow old too fast and die suddenly.

Elin looked like someone had told her the sky is purple.

"Explain" she said.

Alan folded his hands on the table, fingers lacing together.

"About a week ago" he began, "he started feeling tired. Not unusual. He is, indeed, old. After all, he's carried the city on his spine for longer than we were alive."

Elin didn't argue with that.

"The healers checked him" Alan went on. "Circulation. Eon flow. Body integrity. They found small fractures. Little collapses in his channels that shouldn't exist. They tried to reinforce them. The reinforcement held for a day. Then it completely crumbled."

He tapped his own chest lightly.

"His body is... Letting go" he said. "Cell by cell. Thread by thread. As if something decided it was simply time."

"That doesn't happen" Elin said. Her voice had gone quiet. "Not like that."

"We told ourselves the same thing" Alan replied. "For days. Then the Ruler looked us in the eyes and said we were idiots."

Raizen blinked.

"He said that this was old age?" Raizen asked.

"He said that this is what happens when you keep forcing life to stretch past what it was built for" Alan said. "He said that even Eon has limits. That every system, no matter how carefully tended, eventually decides to end."

Elin's jaw clenched. "What does that even mean...?"

Her knuckles had gone white on the table.

"Nobody knows-"

"And now?" she didn't let Alan finish.

"Now he can barely stand for more than a few minutes" Alan said. "His mental clarity is still... Terrifying. But his body fails him. The healers are out of options. The city is pretending not to panic."

He looked at her.

"But he didn't ask for any doctor or healer in this world. He asked for you. He says that he needs to see you."

Elin actually recoiled.

"Me?" she snapped. "After everything? After the forest? After the war? After your little council of cowards shouted my name like a curse for a year straight, he asks for me?"

"Yes. And you know very well that Ukai doesn't have a council, like the other big cities" Alan reminded her. "Just him. And the people he still trusts."

"You are very proud of that, aren't you?" she shot back. "One old man and a city hanging from him like moss."

"He isn't proud" Alan said. "He is... Tired. And he is out of time."

He leaned in a little.

"You are the Sky Sovereign" he said. "You play with patterns no one else touches. You took an entire ecosystem and twisted it into something new without killing it. And the Ruler is aware of it, more than any of us. Yet he still needs to see you."

Elin laughed once. It sounded empty.

"So now I am your miracle" she said. "You hate me when I change things. Then you beg for me when they go wrong."

Alan didn't look away.

"I am not begging" he said. "I am informing you that the man who still remembers your real name, who chose not to have you executed when you declared war on his city, is dying. And he wants to speak to you before he can't anymore."

Her mouth pressed into a thin line at the word executed.

"It's a trap" she said.

"If it were a trap" Alan answered, "you'd be dead already."

He lifted his hands again, almost apologetic.

"Ukai knows what happens if they strike at you in your forest. If they were going to try to remove you, they would have done it quietly. Framing a. "stray" Nyx. Maybe faulty pattern in one of your animals. Oh, there was accident at the edge of the gray zone. The one Ukai civilians know nothing about."

His gaze flicked to Raizen.

"And they would not have sent a man with a stone in his chest to your cave alone."

The faint glow in Alan's shirt pulsed once, as if agreeing.

Elin's shoulders rose and fell in a slow breath.

"How long? Till he's... Gone" she asked.

Alan hesitated.

"Not much" he said finally. "Few days, if he keeps fighting this hard. But every attempt only accelerates the collapse."

Elin's eyes closed for a second.

When she opened them again, the shock had retreated behind something more focused.

A final decision.

"You are very sure of your timing" she observed.

"I always am" Alan replied. "There are a lot of ways to watch from a distance."

She clicked her tongue.

"Of course there are."

She stood.

The chair scraped lightly against stone.

Raizen glanced at her, then at Alan.

"You're going?" Raizen asked.

Elin looked at him like the answer should have been obvious.

"A man like that doesn't get to die without me yelling at him one more time" she said. "Besides, if he actually dies of old age, I want to see how the world bends around that story."

There was something almost fierce in her eyes now. Anger. Worry. Curiosity. There was something more to this.

Alan drew a slow breath of relief.

"Thank you."

"I am not doing this for you" she said.

"I know."

She flicked her fingers toward Raizen.

"Stay here" she added. "Try not to touch anything. If you break one of my hammocks, I feed you to the river."

Raizen blinked.

"Wait" he said. "Stay... here?"

"Obviously not. I'm kidding!" she laughed, now sounding more like herself.

She pointed at his chest.

"You are coming with me."

"Ha?" The sound came out sharper than he meant.

"You wanted answers" she reminded him. "About Ukai. About Tamers. About wars, forests and history, right?"

"You can't get all of that from a cave" Elin finished. "Besides, you have already seen too much."

Alan nodded once.

"Also" Elin kept talking, "If I return without him, I will have to explain to your Ruler why Neoshima's favorite problem child vanished on my watch."

Raizen stared at both of them.

"So this is about... Me now?"

"It's about all of us" Alan replied. "Neoshima, Ukai, the forest, the things in the shadows..."

Raizen's stomach did a small, miserable twist.

"So I don't have a choice. Fantastic" he muttered.

Elin was already moving.

She crossed the platform in quick, efficient steps, pulling open a low chest near the wall. Inside, Raizen saw neatly folded shirts, tightly rolled cloth, small pouches.

She grabbed a dark jacket and shrugged it on over her damp shirt, rolling the sleeves to her elbows. She slid a few metallic trinkets and devices into inner pockets, movements so practiced he almost didn't notice them.

The wrist guards hissed softly as she checked the knives, making sure each blade sat where it should.

"Raizen" she called.

"Yeah?"

"Do you... Ever... Get motion sick?"

"Nope."

"Good. That would be very inconvenient."

She crossed to the platform's edge and whistled. A sharp, clean sound that cut through the cave.

The dragon moved before the echo died.

On the lower disc, its eyes snapped open. Its four black wings unfolded, stretching wide. It pushed itself to its feet in one smooth motion, shook its head once, then leapt.

Air rushed up as it beat its wings, climbing toward them. Its tail fins flicked, sending little gusts through the cave.

It landed on the main platform with more care than Raizen expected. Claws touched stone. Weight settled. The whole disc shivered once.

The dragon lowered its body without being asked, making it easier to climb.

Elin put a hand on its neck, fingers pressing against the seam of scales. The beast's pupils thinned, recognizing something in her touch.

"Alright then!" she shouted.

"Get on. This ride is going to be wilder than anything you've ever lived."