Chapter 7 - The True Heir
Rowan walked forward, picking up the silver-thorn diadem. He turned it over in his hands, feeling the cold, lifeless metal before tossing it carelessly aside onto a pile of ash.
Helena scrambled back, pressing her spine against the base of the obsidian pedestal, her hair wild and her face smeared with soot. "You... you can't touch me. I am the Regent! The council will never accept a northern savage on the throne!"
"I don't want your throne, Helena," Rowan said, stepping over the threshold of the inner vault where the golden Charter Box lay untouched by the fire. He reached down, pressing his bare palm against the ancient lock.
The intricate runes carved into the gold flashed with a brilliant blue light, matching the pulse of the scars on his hand. With a heavy, satisfying click, the ancient box sprang open.
Inside rested a single roll of heavy parchment, sealed with the royal wax of the unified kings—and signed not just by the southern monarchs, but by the ancestral line of the ice-lords, witnessed by the great beast standing behind Rowan.
Marcus Hale walked into the archive, lowering his sword as he looked around at the defeated queen and the open box. He let out a long, slow breath. "By the gods... it's all here."
"Every word," Rowan said, lifting the heavy parchment. He looked down at Helena, who glared up at him with unyielding hatred. "You wanted a war, Helena. You wanted to break the ancient pact between the South and the Reach. But the pact was never yours to break."
"What will you do with me?" Helena spat, her voice shaking with adrenaline and rage. "Execute me? Chain me in the northern ice?"
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"No," Rowan said quietly. "We don't practice your kind of justice. You will stand before the full council—southern lords and northern chieftains alike—and you will answer for every drop of blood spilled by your ambition."
The lion let out a low, approving huff, its breath frosting the air around Helena’s shivering shoulders.
