There was no throne room.
No banners. No jewels. No music.
Only stone, cracked by age and violence. Only ash, thick in the seams of the walls. And only the bones—piled around the dais like silent witnesses.
Leonis stood in the center of the chapel's crypt, surrounded by the Crimson Order's highest ranks. Some wore armor. Others wore robes. A few wore nothing at all but scars and conviction.
The Collector's chair sat empty behind him.
Kael stood to the left, arms folded, expression unreadable.
On the ground before Leonis: a crown of bone.
Cracked ribs, finger joints, jawbone halves. Stitched with dark wire, shaped into a jagged ring that looked more curse than crown.
A woman stepped forward from the circle. Her name was Sareth Vorn—a former executioner, and now the Crimson Order's Voice.
She spoke, loud and clear:
"The throne is shattered. The line is broken. The oaths are ash."
"Who claims the right to lead the Unnamed?"
Leonis did not blink.
"I do."
"Name your right."
"I died," Leonis said. "And they sent me back."
"Name your vow."
He looked down at the bones.
Then at the dead beyond them.
Not the corpses.
The souls.
He could feel them. Not just echoes. Not just fragments.
They were waiting.
And so he spoke:
"I do not ask your loyalty."
"I offer mine. To you. To the broken. To the left behind."
"Let my body be your blade."
"Let my breath be your voice."
"Rise when I rise. Fall when I fall."
"And if I betray this vow—"
"—may my soul be unmade."
The air stilled.
The System pulsed:
"New Skill: Vow of Bone – Active."
"Effect: Host may bind the willing dead as oath-bound followers. Intelligence retained. Physical form dependent on proximity and sacrifice."
"Status: Awaiting response from willing dead…"
And then—
The bones moved.
Not in violence.
Not as undead.
But as oathkeepers.
From the circle of death around him, shapes began to rise—slowly—half-formed. Smoke. Bone. Dust. Each one glowing faintly with the light of remembered violence.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
They stood behind him now—no eyes, no breath—but loyal.
Sareth dropped to one knee.
"Let it be written," she said. "The Ash-Borne Crown has risen."
The rest followed.
Even the dissenters.
Even the rebels who had feared him.
Even Kael, after a long pause, bent his head—not deeply. Not for long. But just enough.
Leonis looked at his new army.
Not built from glory.
Built from what the world tried to forget.
"We do not kneel to gods," he said.
"We make gods kneel to memory."
Outside the chapel, stormclouds finally broke.
But the rain that fell was black.
And it tasted like ash.