The Crown of Ashes and Blood

Part II Defeated

I looked around the dim room and tried to assess the situation. Kavi and the rest weren’t just hiding. They were all waiting to die. I pushed myself to my feet, legs trembling. Pain roared through my body, but I didn’t sit back down.

“No,” I said. “No. This isn’t how it ends.”

Kavi grabbed my arm to steady me. “Cavren, you need to rest...”

“No, I’ve rested long enough.” I shrugged off Kavi’s support, feeling the blood pump through my aching limbs, feeling my temperature rise, “We fought for something, we bled for it. And now everyone is in hiding and calling it survival?”

“They took Ka’nar,” Kavi said bitterly. “There’s nothing left!”

“That’s what they want you to believe,” I said, taking another step forward. My knees nearly gave. I didn’t care. “They think we’re broken. That we’ve scattered like ash. That no one will rise again, but they’re wrong.”

A flicker. A shift in Kavi’s eyes. Just a fraction. But I saw it.

“We still breathe. That alone is defiance. We are dangerous. Because we remember what it was like before, and we aren’t going to…”

“I don’t need this,” Kavi interrupted with his hand clenched into a fist at his side. “You are delusional, we have lost! Don’t you get it?”

I paused, “I didn’t wake up to die here. I woke up to finish what we started.”

The room was still.

Then, slowly, Kavi stepped forward. “You don’t even have your strength back,” he said, “You can barely stand.”

“I’ll crawl if I have to,” I said. “We can turn this around.”

Kavi looked at me for a long time. His frail body shaking from being so sickly. “I have nothing left to give, Cavren, even if I believed you.”

The others must have heard the commotion as my father and Kaspar entered the room.

“My son!” my father exclaimed, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close—a rare display of affection from him. “I thought you’d never wake again. Your mother said you would, and I should have listened to her.”

He squeezed me tighter. I felt a sharp pinch and realized his arm was now mechanical, pressing hard against my scales.

“Ah, Father, you're squeezing too tightly,” I winced.

“Sorry, son. I just needed something to make me smile again.” He stepped back and patted my shoulder with his metal hand.

Kaspar said nothing. He only nodded; arms folded behind his back. He looked thinner too, his scales dulled to a grey sheen. My father, on the other hand, looked much the same as ever.

“Where is Mother?” I asked.

“She’s trying to protect the humans. The Entity traced them here from that GEN.A.I. unit Blue had. Now it’s hunting her, and Riven, too.”

I snorted under my breath. Even the humans had brought their troubles here. “Well, it looks like I woke up just in time. We've got work to do.”

Kavi and Kaspar exchanged a glance, then almost in unison looked down and slinked out of the room, leaving my father and me alone.

“Look, son,” he said quietly, “things are... grim. Even with the Karrassu beasts, we don't stand a chance. The entire system is infected, by Kreplar's poison.”

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn’t believe even my father was unwilling to fight the Shalvasan he had hated most. “So, this is it?” I threw my arms up in the air in disbelief.

My father walked over to the window and gazed out at our lush Kazaki garden, "Come here, Reny," he called softly.

I joined him at the window, my eyes following his gaze. The garden stretched out before us. Towering green trees with thick, leafy canopies swayed gently in the breeze, their branches casting long, dappled shadows on the ground. Small flowers, bright reds, purples, and yellows sprinkled the ground in tiny bursts of color, their petals trembling under the touch of the wind.

My father’s voice was quieter now, a low murmur that seemed meant only for me. He didn’t want anyone else to hear what he was about to say.

“You’ve seen your friend... and you’ve seen Kaspar. Many of the survivors who made it to Kazaki are the same. They’ve lost hope.” He paused, his gaze distant, “There’s not much we can do for them.”