Weaves of Ashes

Chapter 19: Chapter 14: The Price of Power

Location: Ancestor Library | Mortal Realm, Doha

Time: Minutes After Explosion

Jade woke to pain and the smell of burnt flesh.

(Everything hurts. Gods, everything—)

Tactical assessment. Injured but mobile. Environmental hazard unknown. Extract immediately.

Her head felt like someone’d used it for hammer practice. Everything hurt—ribs screaming with each breath, arms scraped raw, legs bruised, hands especially where she’d landed on broken glass after the explosion threw her backward. Blood crusted her palms, sticky and drying, and when she tried to flex her fingers, the cuts reopened, fresh pain lancing up her wrists.

She blinked dust from her eyes, trying to make sense of the chaos.

The library was destroyed. Completely wrecked. Shelves toppled like dominoes, books scattered everywhere like wounded birds with broken spines, glass glittering in dim light from the few eternal lamps that’d survived. Part of the roof had collapsed into what used to be the reading area, wooden beams jutting at wrong angles through clouds of still-settling dust.

And she was lying in a clear circle. No debris. No fallen beams. No heavy books. Just her, in the middle of devastation, like something had shielded her from the worst of it.

(The tome. It protected me when it—when it dissolved into—)

Environmental shielding. Luminari artifact activation created a protective barrier around bonded host. Standard protocol.

But where were—

Her eyes found them.

Saphira lay crumpled, maybe fifteen feet away, not moving. And Jade felt something dark and satisfied curl through her chest, warm like good wine, when she saw her sister’s face.

Burns. Gods, the burns.

They crawled up Saphira’s left cheek like angry red vines, skin blistered and raw and weeping clear fluid that caught the light. Her forehead was worse—the skin there had actually melted, bubbled up, and then cooled into shapes that’d scar forever. One side of her hair was singed down to nothing, just blackened stubble and the smell—that sweet-sick smell of burnt protein that made Jade’s stomach turn even as satisfaction spread through her like poison.

(Good. She deserves worse. Deserves so much worse for what she’s done.)

Emotional response noted. Maintain tactical focus.

But it was hard to focus when she could see Saphira’s chest rising and falling—shallow, labored breaths—which meant the bitch was still alive. Still breathing. After ten years of torture, of casual cruelty, of making every single day in the slave pits worse just because she could—

And Edvard was there too, sprawled near an overturned shelf. He looked wrong somehow. Not burned like Saphira, but... deflated, maybe? Like someone’d let all the air out of him. His face was pale, his lips blue-tinged, and even from here, Jade could sense something fundamentally broken about his cultivation.

(His Crucible Core. The explosion shattered it.)

Confirmed. Target’s cultivation base destroyed. Threat level reduced to negligible.

Ten years. Ten years of Edvard’s sadistic games, his ”creative” punishments whenever he got bored, the way he’d smile while describing exactly how he’d hurt her if Father ever gave permission. And now he was nothing. Weaker than a child. Weaker than the slaves he’d tortured for entertainment.

The satisfaction was almost overwhelming. Almost made the pain worth it.

(They’re ruined. Both of them. Everything they valued—Saphira’s beauty, Edvard’s cultivation—gone.)

Irrelevant. Survival priority one. Extract immediately before hostiles arrive.

Right. Right. Focus.

Jade could hear voices outside, getting closer. Father’s voice—she recognized the commanding tone even through the ringing in her ears. The elders. Guards. Lots of people moving around, clearing rubble from the entrance, shouting orders.

Terror flooded through her in a cold wave that made her hands shake worse than the pain did.

(They’ll think I did this. The tome, the explosion, Saphira, and Edvard hurt—they’ll kill me.)

Incorrect assumption. They witnessed golden light. Divine artifact activation. They’ll assume one of the ”worthy” children succeeded. You’re beneath their notice.

(But if they find me here—)

Then extract. Now. Window in rear wall provides egress. Move.

Her Federation instincts kicked in, tactical assessment overriding panic. The voices were still outside—maybe thirty seconds before they broke through the blocked entrance. Broken window in the rear wall, she could see it from here. Deserted courtyard beyond, she knew that because she’d scouted escape routes from every location in the estate over the years. Restday meant most slaves and servants were gone or in their quarters. The people clearing rubble outside were making enough noise to cover her movement.

She could do this.

Jade rolled onto her stomach, biting back a whimper as her ribs protested. Scrambled toward the window on hands and knees, staying low, using overturned shelves for cover. Her bloody hands left prints on the marble floor but there was no helping that. Move fast, get out, worry about the rest later.

Behind her, Saphira made a sound—half-moan, half-whimper—and Jade paused.

Looked back.

Her sister’s ruined face was turned toward her, eyes still closed, but her lips were moving. Forming words, Jade couldn’t hear. Probably begging. Probably crying for help.

(Should I—?)

No. Extract. They’ll find her. Not your concern.

Jade’s jaw tightened. The Federation voice was right. Saphira had never shown her mercy. Had laughed while Jade bled. Had enjoyed every moment of her suffering.

She deserved this. Deserved worse.

Jade turned away and kept moving.

The window frame still held jagged glass shards sticking up like teeth. She grabbed a piece of broken wood lying nearby—part of a shelf, maybe—and smashed out the remaining glass. Quick, efficient strikes. The sound was lost in the general chaos outside, the shouting and running feet, and someone yelling about getting healers.

Deep breath. Ignore the pain. Move.

She squeezed through the window frame. Tight fit even for her small frame—fifteen years old but malnourished, stunted from a decade of starvation rations. Her shoulders scraped the sides, and she had to twist sideways to get her hips through, suppressing a grunt of pain as rough edges caught on her already-injured ribs. But she made it, dropping into the courtyard beyond with a thud that knocked the wind from her lungs.

Empty. Thank the gods.

She ran.

The slave pits were on the far side of the estate—quarter mile through courtyards and gardens. Her bare feet slapped against stone paths as she moved, taking routes she’d memorized years ago for exactly this kind of emergency. Stay in shadows. Use cover. Move fast, but not so fastthat you draw attention if anyone’s watching from windows.

(Father’s going to find out. He’ll hunt us. There’s nowhere safe.)

Incorrect. Prepare for extraction. Gather supplies. The Dark Forest provides concealment.

Her shack in the slave pits looked exactly like she’d left it—tiny, cramped, walls held together by hope and spite. She grabbed the bundle of stolen food she’d hidden under the loose floorboard. Dried meat that was probably half-spoiled. Hard bread that could double as a weapon. Some nuts she’d foraged during rare outdoor work details. Not much, but better than nothing.

She also grabbed Zhek’s storage ring from where she kept it hidden—tucked into a crack in the stone wall, wrapped in oiled cloth to keep it from corroding. The old man’s final gift, still cool against her skin when she slipped it on her finger. She didn’t know what was inside—hadn’t figured out how to access it yet—but it was hers. The only inheritance she had.

(Is this enough? Can we really survive out there?)

Unknown. But remaining here guarantees death. The foxhole. Now.

The foxhole waited behind bushes in the northern corner of the estate, near where the walls met the old watchtower nobody used anymore. She’d found it years ago—probably dug by actual foxes, then abandoned—and widened it gradually over months, kept it secret, and maintained. Her emergency exit. Her last resort.

Time to use it.

She dropped to her stomach and squirmed through, ignoring how rocks scraped her already-injured hands, how the tunnel squeezed her ribs until breathing hurt, how dirt got in her mouth and nose and eyes. Forward. Keep moving. Don’t stop. Don’t think about the earth pressing down above her, don’t think about getting stuck, don’t think about—

The exit spilled her out into the small forest beyond the estate walls. She stumbled to her feet, oriented herself—north, toward the mountains, toward the Dark Forest—and started running.

Behind her, distantly, she heard voices rising in alarm.

They’d found Saphira and Edvard. Soon they’d search the wreckage more carefully. Soon they’d realize the Voidforge slave was missing.

Soon they’d come hunting.

But Jade was already gone, disappeared into the trees like smoke, like a ghost, like she’d never existed at all.

And in the library behind her, Za’thul and the elders stared at two broken children and a missing divine artifact, and began constructing a story that made sense to them. A story where the worthy had been chosen and the unworthy had paid the price.

A story where a fifteen-year-old slave girl couldn’t possibly be important.

They’d realize their mistake eventually.

But by then, it’d be far too late.

***

The Destroyed Library — Discovery

They burst through the entrance—debris cleared just enough for bodies to squeeze through—and the scene inside stole Za’thul’s breath.

Devastation. Complete, utter devastation.

The golden light was gone now, faded back into whatever metaphysical space divine magic lived in. Leaving behind wreckage that looked like a war zone. Shelves toppled and splintered. Books scattered like wounded birds, pages torn, spines cracked. Glass everywhere, glittering in the dim light from the few eternal lamps that’d survived. Part of the roof collapsed into what used to be the reading area, wooden beams jutting at wrong angles through holes that showed sky above.

And blood. Dark pools of it on the marble floor, drag marks where someone—something—had moved through the wreckage.

But worst of all was the smell.

Burnt flesh. Sweet and sick and wrong, mixing with smoke and dust and the copper-tang of blood until Za’thul’s stomach turned, until he had to swallow hard against the bile rising in his throat.

”Saphira!” Za’thul lunged forward, falling to his knees beside a crumpled figure.

His daughter. His beautiful daughter, lying unconscious in the rubble.

Her face—gods, her face.

Burns crawled up her left cheek and across her forehead, skin blistered and raw and angry red like someone’d held her to a forge. The flesh had bubbled up in places, melted and cooled into patterns that’d scar forever, that’d mark her as damaged for the rest of her life. Her hair was singed short on one side—just blackened stubble where thick black curls used to fall to her waist. The smell of burnt strands made his stomach turn, mixed with the sweeter smell of scorched skin and something else, something chemical he couldn’t identify.

Clear fluid wept from the blisters. Her left eye was swollen shut, the skin around it tight and shiny. Her lips were cracked, bleeding in places where the heat had split them.

But she was breathing. Shallow, labored, each breath making a wet sound that suggested smoke damage to her lungs—but breathing.

”Get healers!” Za’thul roared, voice cracking. ”Now! Immediately!”

Guards scattered, running for the medical wing.

Za’thul’s hands hovered over Saphira, afraid to touch her, afraid he’d hurt her worse. What had happened? The Divine Tome was supposed to bring greatness, power, glory—not this. Not burns and blood and—

Her greatest asset, gone. Saphira’s beauty had been legendary in the province. Suitors had come from branch families across Doha, offering alliances and wealth just for the chance to court her. And now—

Now she’d be lucky if they could heal her enough to be presentable in public.

”Za’thul.” Kato’s voice, tight and strange.

Za’thul looked up. His brother was kneeling beside another figure—Edvard, sprawled near an overturned shelf—and his expression was... wrong. Not triumphant. Not excited. Something that might’ve been horror mixed with desperate denial.

”Is he—?” Za’thul couldn’t finish the question.

”Alive,” Kato said shortly. His hand rested over Edvard’s chest, sensing, probing with his cultivation awareness. ”But his Crucible Core...” He trailed off, jaw clenching so hard Za’thul could see the muscle jump.

An elder crouched beside them—Elder Korren, one of the strongest cultivators in the clan—placing both hands over Edvard’s torso, probing deeper. The elder’s face went pale. Actually pale, which was saying something because Elder Korren had seen battlefields and beast tides and horror enough to fill nightmares.

”Cracked,” Elder Korren announced quietly. Voice hollow, like he was speaking from the bottom of a well. ”No—shattered, actually. His cultivation’s... gone. Destroyed. He’s barely at Ashborn tier now. Maybe even below that.” He paused, swallowed hard. ”An eight-year-old child could overpower him.”

The words hung in the air like a death sentence.

Silence. Complete, crushing silence except for the settling of debris and Saphira’s labored breathing.

Za’thul’s mind reeled. Both children unconscious. Saphira scarred beyond recognition. Edvard’s cultivation destroyed—everything he’d built over twenty-one years, all the resources poured into his training, the specialized techniques, the expensive pills and elixirs—gone.

What kind of awakening was this? What kind of price—

”The tome,” he said suddenly, standing. ”Where’s the Divine Tome?”

The elders scattered, searching frantically through the rubble. Tossing aside broken shelves, sifting through scattered scrolls, and moving carefully around the pools of blood. They searched the display case—shattered, empty. The reading tables—collapsed. The archive corners—buried under fallen roof sections.

Minutes passed. Nothing.

”It’s gone,” Elder Tessa said finally, voice tight. ”The Divine Tome is gone.”

”Gone?” Kato echoed, standing slowly. ”It can’t be gone. Divine artifacts don’t just disappear. It must’ve recognized someone—that’s how binding works. Recognition, acceptance, power transfer, binding.”

Za’thul stared at his daughter’s ruined face and felt understanding click into place with horrible certainty.

Saphira paid the price.

That’s how cultivation worked on Doha. Strength came with sacrifice. The greater the power, the greater the cost. It was fundamental—written into the very laws that governed essence and magic. You couldn’t gain without losing. Couldn’t rise without something being torn away.

Saphira’s beauty—her greatest asset, the thing she’d been most proud of, the source of her confidence and power in social circles—for the tome’s recognition. A fair trade, really, in the grand scheme of things. Who needed beauty when you had enough power to reshape the world? When you could ascend to immortality itself?

His heart swelled with pride even as grief twisted through his chest. His daughter. His heir. The chosen one. She’d paid the ultimate price and gained ultimate power. The tome had bonded with her, dissolved into her essence, and when she woke, she’d be transformed.

This is it. My legacy. My redemption. Everything I’ve worked for.

Kato was muttering to himself, staring at Edvard with an expression Za’thul couldn’t quite read. Denial? Desperation? The beginnings of some rationalization that’d let him cling to hope?

”It was Edvard,” Kato said suddenly, voice gaining strength with each word. ”Had to be. Look at the pattern—complete destruction before rebirth. His core’s shattered because the tome remade it from the ground up. Destroyed the flawed foundation to build something perfect. He’ll rebuild from scratch, but when he does—gods, Za’thul, when he does—he’ll be unstoppable. That’s the pattern in all the old stories. The hero loses everything before gaining everything.”

Za’thul almost laughed. Almost. Because Kato was grasping at straws, trying desperately to make his broken, cultivation-less son into the chosen one when it was obvious—obvious—that Saphira had been selected.

”We’ll discuss it when they wake,” Za’thul said diplomatically, though his tone made it clear there was nothing to discuss. ”For now, let’s focus on getting them healed.”

Healers arrived in a rush of green-trimmed robes and medical supplies, gentle hands lifting Saphira and Edvard onto stretchers. Za’thul followed his daughter’s stretcher as they carried her toward the medical wing, watching her ruined face, imagining the power that must be flowing through her veins right now. The immortal potential awakening in her Crucible Core.

Kato stayed with Edvard, and the elders muttered amongst themselves, already calculating political angles. Who would back Za’thul’s claim for Saphira? Who might side with Kato if Edvard somehow recovered?

They’d wait. The truth would emerge when the children woke up.

And then—then—the Freehold clan would finally claim its destiny.

Behind them, in the wreckage, no one noticed the bloody handprints leading toward the rear window. No one thought to count the bodies. No one considered that someone might be missing.

The Voidforge slave wasn’t worth remembering.

And that oversight would cost them everything.