Ashes Of The Throne | Part I

Chapter 169 | The World Has Turned And Left Me Here

Isadora lay in ruins—a grand city reduced to a shattered husk of its former glory. Once-proud spires and elegant arches had crumbled to ash, while the wide avenues were choked with debris and twisted metal. Thick, acrid smoke smothered the sky, painting it a murky canvas of dark clouds, intermittently lit by violent bursts of flame.

In the heart of the business district—once a vibrant hub of life and commerce—the silence was shattered by desperate screams and the relentless roar of collapsing buildings. Broken windows gaped like empty eyes, and every corner bore the scars of a nightmarish assault. Bewildered civilians wandered in a daze, haunted by the loss of a city that had once stood as a beacon of hope—a proud legacy now reduced to rubble and sorrow.

Jesse landed amid the devastation, her senses reeling at the apocalyptic scene. What startled her more than the ruined cityscape was the sight of Richie, Toni, Jasmine, and Mya gathered in the main street, their eyes fixed on enormous digital displays looming overhead like omniscient sentinels.

Across those screens, live images flashed relentlessly. To Jesse's horror, Matthew's face—and then those of Toni, Richie, and even her own—appeared alongside bold, damning headlines. They were labeled traitors to the crown, fugitives on the run, and murderers wanted for the deaths of the royal elite. The accusation hit her like a sledgehammer, leaving her mouth agape in disbelief. What the hell was going on?

The news feed shifted abruptly, flashing first the faces of the dead and the castrophe of the city before zeroing in on Matthew as their leader who brought the war on them—and then, chillingly, on footage of herself, Toni, and Richie unleashing the raw power of the crystals on the city just an hour earlier.

Jesse's stomach churned as the harsh reality sank in—while they had been out clearing the streets and protecting the innocent, covert reporters had been filming their every move. That footage was then twisted and weaponized to paint them as villains, as though they were the very ones inflicting harm. She could only assume that the board—and Rylan—had orchestrated this manipulation of the narrative. The ground seemed to shift beneath her feet as the undeniable truth of their situation crashed down upon her, leaving no room for denial.

They were being charged with war crimes.

Had the world gone mad? Had they been thrust into an alternate reality where they were nothing but monsters?

"What the fuck?" Richie breathed, his voice laced with incredulous despair. "We just saved the fucking world, and now they're hunting us down?"

"We need to go," Toni barked amid the chaos, his eyes darting over the group as panic set in. The streets teemed with civilians—faces hollow with terror, all fixated on the massive screens overhead that had just sealed their fates.

Richie turned to Mya, his tone urgent. "Flick, go with Jasmine—head back home, pack what you can, and grab Mac. I'll be there in five minutes."

Without another word, Mya nodded, and Jasmine reached for her hand. Together, they slipped away into the storm.

Jesse muttered under her breath, "I need to get to the office and wipe everything. They're gonna come after us with this." And just like that, she vanished into the tempest.

Toni glared at Richie, his voice thick with incredulity. "It's Rylan and the fucking board—they weren't fucking joking."

Richie shook his head, his eyes clouded with deep worry and sorrow. "Where do we go? What's safe?" he asked, his tone raw with genuine fear. "The academies will turn on us—you know the protocols." He turned to Toni. "You and Jesse know Matthew's contingency plans better than anyone."

Toni fixed his gaze on him and responded with firm resolve, "Up north—to Spear. We grab what we can, then we run. We wait until this all blows over, because it's gonna spark a fucking war, and that's the last thing we need right now."