Ashbourne was born that night.
Not in ceremony, not with horns or heralds or flames roaring across the sky—but in quiet, resolute silence, like the breath before a storm. It rose not from triumph, but from the sheer audacity of survival. And we? We were its architects, its shield, its fire.
But something else rose with it.
Something that had been waiting.
Three days after the Hollow King’s fall, the city stirred with life. Survivors emerged from the cracks, from hidden places—witches, wolves, wayward souls with haunted eyes and hearts still beating. They came not to kneel, but to stand. With us. For themselves.
Ashbourne had no king. No queen. Just a handful of broken warriors with nothing left to lose—and everything left to fight for.
But power doesn’t just disappear.
It echoes.
A
