## CHAPTER 75: _"A Throne of Thorns and Thunder"_
**I. The Queenmaker's Oath**
The rebel camps beyond the Vale burned with urgency. Flags stitched with the mark of the Cursed Heart were raised in silence. Tonight, Lysia would be crowned—not by bloodline, but by burden.
She stood before them barefoot, cloaked in storm-gray silk. Her voice was clear, but her soul trembled.
"I am not your queen because I was born to rule. I am your queen because I carry what they fear. And I choose to stay."
They chanted her name not as a title, but a promise.
**II. Ashes and Iron**
Arien walked alone through the blackened ruins of Elderwatch. He found the burned remains of scrolls prophesying his death. Statues of old kings lay shattered in the snow. He placed his hand on one, whispering, "Your throne is dust. Mine will be fire."
The ghost of the last true king, his grandfather, appeared in flickering moonlight. "You are not like us."
"I never wanted to be," Arien replied.
**III. The Crownless Coronation**
There was no crown—only a circlet of thorns and starlight, woven by the village children from silverroot and glass. Lysia knelt as an old priestess from the marshlands traced salt on her forehead.
A storm brewed in the skies, but the winds quieted the moment the crown touched her hair.
Lightning struck the altar.
The gods had witnessed it.
**IV. Broken Blades**
That night, assassins tried again.
They came dressed as servants, blades soaked in basilisk venom. But Arien was waiting. He didn't fight with fury—he fought with grace.
"You keep coming," he said, slicing through their leader. "But every time, you prove why we must win."
The final assassin didn't beg. She whispered, "We were told you'd destroy everything."
Arien looked past her.
"That's the lie they sold you. We're here to rebuild."
**V. Lysia's Dream**
Lysia dreamed of a tree that grew backwards—from ash to seed. She sat beneath it, holding the hand of a girl with her eyes. A daughter? A future that might never be?
"You are the root," the tree whispered. "But the world will only grow if you break first."
She woke with tears in her hair, and fire in her lungs.
**VI. The Alliance of Ghosts**
They traveled north to meet with the forgotten tribes of the Aether Wastes. These were the Outcast Lords—men and women cursed by fate, feared by empires, left to rot.
Arien addressed them in the old tongue.
"You were left behind. So were we. But together, we are what they'll never see coming."
One by one, the tribes lit their banners. A storm army born in exile.
**VII. Letters That Burn**
Lysia received a letter from her mother—dead seventeen years. It wasn't magic. Just a message smuggled through time, hidden in the folds of an old lullaby.
_"If you're reading this, it means the curse chose you. Be stronger than me. Break it."_
Lysia didn't cry. She stood and wrote her own letter—to the girl in the mirror.
"You will survive this. Even if love breaks you."
**VIII. Prelude to Blood**
The monarchs gathered at the edge of the Blackreach Fields, their armies gleaming. War had not yet begun, but its breath was already on their necks.
A raven landed on Arien's shoulder. He read its message, then burned it.
"They're coming tonight," he said. "All of them."
Lysia nodded.
"Then tonight," she whispered, "we end the waiting."
**IX. The Thunder Before the Rain**
As the winds howled and lightning kissed the hills, Arien and Lysia stood hand in hand.
The curse was no longer just a shadow.
It had a throne.
It had a voice.
And tomorrow—it would have a war.