## đ CHAPTER 77: _"The Heir of Ashes and Stars"_
**I. A Kingdom Without a Crown**
Blackreach had fallen, but the winds carried no songs of victory. Only the stench of smoke, steel, and sorrow lingered. In the ruins of the battlefield, Arien knelt where the last of his blood had fallen. Not for a prayer. For a promise.
"We rebuild from this," he said.
Beside him, Lysia stood, barefoot in the ashes. Her hands glowed faintly with the magic that once sought to kill her. Now, it clung to her like breath itself.
**II. The First Trial**
The Phoenix Pact held its first gathering in the ruined cathedral of Myra. Broken spires. Shattered stained glass. It was beautiful in its grief.
A thousand cursed souls arrived, not with swordsâbut with stories. Some refused to bow. Some wept openly.
Arien spoke no grand speeches.
"We are what they feared," he said. "Let's become what they need."
**III. The Mage's Ultimatum**
The First Mage returned, not in lightâbut in storm. He offered no blessing. Only judgment.
"You've created something unnatural," he said. "Undo it, or watch the world bend to correct it."
Lysia met his gaze. "We didn't survive just to obey the old gods. Let the world bend."
**IV. The Return of the Forgotten**
From the eastern wilds came a caravan of souls thought long deadâdescendants of the lost kingdom of Vire. Among them, a girl bearing Arien's eyes.
"Who is she?" Lysia asked.
"Someone I should've known," he said.
Bloodlines unravel. And destiny complicates.
**V. The Gathering Storm**
A new threat roseânot from kingdoms, but from within. Cursed children born with gifts neither Arien nor Lysia understood. Powers that bent time, memory, death.
The world whispered a new prophecy:
_When the cursed birth the divine, a god shall rise⌠or fall._
**VI. The Trial of the Flame Circle**
To test loyalty and strength, the pact initiated the Flame Circle: a rite of passage through seven illusions, one for each sin.
Lysia walked it alone.
She faced her own death. Her mother's betrayal. The night she almost killed Arien.
And at the end, she saw herself⌠holding a child with Arien's eyes.
Was it a visionâor a curse reborn?
**VII. The City Beneath the Stars**
Arien uncovered a buried city, older than Elira, where starlight bled into stone and every shadow spoke.
There, he met an entity who claimed to be his ancestorâa king who once burned the sky to escape love.
"You will do worse," the entity said. "Or better. Choose."
**VIII. Love, Tested Again**
Lysia began to pull away. Not from angerâbut fear.
"I can feel something inside me growing," she said. "And it's not love. It's prophecy."
Arien took her hand.
"Then let's defy it together."
She wept. Not from sadness. But from the terror of hope.
**IX. The Pact Splinters**
Not all cursed wished for peace. A faction rose: The Crimson Bloom. Led by one of Arien's former guards. They believed powerânot peaceâwas their birthright.
They assassinated two council members.
Lysia's magic scorched their base.
"There will be no second war," she said. "Only an ending."
**X. The Starfall Oath**
The skies rained stars. The gods were watching again.
In a sacred ceremony beneath the ruins of the Celestial Tree, Arien and Lysia swore the Starfall Oath:
"To never let love become silence. To never let power replace memory. And to always choose each otherâeven when fate offers no mercy."
The petals fell again.
But this time, they bloomed where they landed.