Ascension Of The Forgotten King

Chapter 4: The Seer’s Warning

The wind in the Wastes never stopped.

Even as Kian and Seris moved through the ashes of Emberhold, the sands whispered secrets only the dead could understand. The Ember Crown rested in Kian’s satchel, its heat radiating faintly against his back.

He hadn’t spoken much since the battle with the Warden. The memories was disjointed and violent but it still clawed at his mind. That woman. Her silver eyes. The crown of light she wore. Why did it hurt to remember her?

Seris kept her distance, sensing his turmoil. But danger was already closing in.

Three nights later, while camping in the crumbled ruins of a shattered bell tower, Kian dreamed.

It wasn’t like the other flashes.

He stood in a hall of mirrors, each pane showing a version of himself but he was wounded, crowned, bleeding, laughing and burning. One stepped forward.

A golden armor, his eyes hollow with grief. He was the King.

“Seven fragments, seven doors. Each one brings you closer to the truth.”

“Who are you?” Kian asked. “Really?”

“I am what you were. What you may become.” The King raised a hand, touching the mirror’s surface. “But beware. The closer you get to your past, the further you may fall from your present.”

Before Kian could answer, the mirrors shattered and he awoke to Seris shaking him, eyes wide.

“We have company.” Kian sat up, instincts flaring. “Cultists?”

“No,” she said. “Something worse.” It's a shadow stepped into the ruined bell tower.

He was tall, wrapped in a hunter’s cloak, with blades strapped across his back and a strange golden circlet pressed into his dark curls. His left eye was covered by a shimmering blue lens, it was magical, likely cybernetic. The aura around him wasn’t just powerful, it was ancient.

“Tracker,” Seris whispered. “He works for the Seer.”

Kian stepped forward, tense. “Friend or foe?”

“Depends,” the stranger said, his voice like gravel. “Are you the real one?”

Kian frowned. “What?”

“The King,” the stranger said, stepping closer. “Are you just a fragment wearing skin or the soul itself?”

Kian didn’t answer.

The stranger sighed and drew a slim, hooked blade. “That’s what I thought.”

Before Kian could react, the man was already moving fast, silent and deadly.

Steel clashed. Kian deflected the first strike but was outmatched immediately. The man fought like a phantom, every motion calculated, brutal.

Seris stepped in, throwing a flare of emberlight between them.

“Enough!” she snapped. The man leapt back, while narrowing his eyes.

“I didn’t come to kill him,” he muttered. “I came to warn him.”

“Funny way of doing it,” Kian said, panting.

The stranger lowered his blade. “My name isThorne. I’m a Relic Hunter. I used to work for the Crimson Order before I found out what they really are.”

Seris tensed. “Then why are you here?”

“Because the Seer sent me,” Thorne replied. “She’s not with the Order anymore. Not really. She’s seen what happens if you continue down this path.”

Kian narrowed his eyes. “Let me guess. The world ends. I become a tyrant. Death, fire, suffering.”

“No,” Thorne said. “Worse. You forget who you are.”

Kian blinked.

Thorne continued. “Each relic you claim doesn’t just awaken power, it buries your present under your past. You will lose yourself, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left of you but him.”

Kian swallowed. “Then what do you expect me to do? Sit around while the Order wins?”

“No,” Thorne said. “But there’s another way.”

He reached into his cloak and pulled out a crystal shard faintly humming with violet light.

“A Memory Anchor. Forbidden tech. Banned centuries ago. It can lock your current identity in place, keep the past from taking over.”

Kian stepped forward slowly. “Why help me?”

Thorne’s gaze darkened. “Because I followed the last man who wore that crown and it cost me everything.”

He dropped the shard into Kian’s hand, “use it before the next relic. Or don’t. Your choice.”

He turned to leave, but paused. “Oh. One more thing.”

Thorne glanced back. “The next relic isn’t in a ruin. It’s in a living city. Gravesend.”

Seris froze. “That place is under Crimson control.”

“Not anymore,” Thorne said. “It’s worse now. The Whispers have it.”

After Thorne vanished into the Wastes, Kian turned the Memory Anchor over in his hand. It pulsed with a faint heartbeat, which was his own.

“You trust him?” he asked Seris.

She hesitated. “I trust his motives. But the Seer? No one truly understands her.” Kian looked up. “What are the Whispers?”

Seris looked grim. “They were once system moderators… AI-bound enforcers. But after the Fall, something corrupted them, now they speak only in riddles. Anyone who listens too long loses their mind.”

“And the relic?” “If it’s in Gravesend, it’s likely hidden beneath the old cathedral,” she said. “That place is saturated in neural code and memory ghosts. Dangerous.”

Kian nodded slowly, one relic had nearly killed him. The second could cost him his mind.

But he had no choice. “Then we go,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

That night, he stared at the Memory Anchor by the fire. Could he really preserve himself? Could he become the King without losing Kian?

He thought of his uncle, of Windrest, of the girl in his visions.

He didn’t know who he was becoming, but he knew who he had to protect.

Memory Log [Recovered Fragment: 2/7]

Date Unknown.

Location: Throne of Ash.

A woman kneels before the King, face covered in soot, her crown cracked.

Her voice trembles:

“You promised peace.”

The King turns away.

“I promised survival.”

Behind him, a thousand swords rise.