Chapter 38 Ashes Of Crown

• Stone dust rained from above as the chamber groaned, torn apart by light and shadow. When the blast finally died, silence crushed the air, thick and suffocating. The obsidian floor was cracked open like a scar, glowing veins of molten light pulsing through it.
• Jared staggered at the edge of the rift, blood painting his ribs, his breath ragged. His steel-grey eye flickered faintly, crown-light guttering like a dying flame. Across from him, the mirrored Jared emerged from the smoke, chains slithering around him, though frayed now, cracked with fissures of light. His grin was gone, replaced by something colder—hungry, hateful.
• Emma’s voice broke through the silence. “Jared!” Her wrists bled raw from fighting the Arbiter’s bindings, her voice hoarse with desperation. “Don’t give in. Please—don’t you dare.”