## đ CHAPTER 81: _"The Widow Throne"_
The palace bells tolledâtwelve times.
Not for a wedding.
Not for war.
But for a funeral without a body.
Arien Thorne, Crown Prince of Elira, slayer of kings and bearer of the blood-curse, had fallen.
And though his body had not yet turned to ash, the kingdom mourned as if it had.
Lysia stood alone in the high tower where his sword restedâstill dripping with the Queen of Cinders' last curse. She did not weep. Her tears had long since dried. What she felt now was something worse:
Emptiness.
It was not silence that crushed her. It was the memory of his voice.
She traced the edge of the sword with her fingertip. "Come back to me," she whispered.
Outside, the sky broke open. Not rain. Not snow.
Ash.
---
In the palace chapel, the High Seer lit a thousand candlesâone for each soul Arien had carried on his cursed shoulders.
Each flame flickered the same way.
Each flame bowed to one direction.
North.
The Seer frowned. "He is not gone. He is... traveling."
---
In the frozen tundra of Eiragarde, a place no map dared mark, a man rose from beneath the ice.
His chest was bare. His veins glowed.
His heart beatâonce every thirty seconds.
Arien opened his eyes.
And whispered, "Where am I?"
---
Chapter 81 is the unraveling.
It is the journey not just through distanceâbut through identity.
Arien finds himself in a world that should not exist. A land beneath time. A place called *Isalven*, known only to the first gods and the last monsters.
Here, memories take form. His guilt walks beside him, his regrets whisper behind him.
And Lysia's voice haunts himânot as pain, but as anchor.
Back in Elira, Lysia refuses to claim the throne. "I'm not a queen," she declares. "I'm a promise."
But the court demands leadership.
And the shadows that once feared Arien now move freely.
A new villain risesânot a god, not a king.
A *Widow Queen*.
She claims to be Arien's wife.
She says she bore his child.
And she wears a crown of broken oaths.
The people believe her. The nobles kneel. The priests chant.
And Lysia⊠Lysia begins to lose faith.
Until a letter arrives.
No name.
No seal.
Only seven words:
> "He walks north. Find him before they do."
---
The race begins.
Lysia rides alone. Into frost. Into fire.
And far away, in the land of Isalven, Arien faces a mirror that speaks.
It does not show his face.
It shows Lysia.
Bleeding.
> "Save her," it says.
> "Or lose yourself forever."
To be continuedâŠ