Chapter 125 What Remains And What Rises

• The morning after the council’s agreement, the castle brimmed with a hum Espen hadn’t felt in years—anticipation.
• Not dread. Not chaos. But something restless. Like a kingdom holding its breath before it became something new.
• She stood in the great hall beneath the restored crest of her bloodline—a phoenix carved in obsidian, wings outstretched over a broken crown. It hadn’t been her idea. It had been Mikko’s. Said it was time to stop pretending her legacy was anything but reborn from fire.