Ashes Of The Throne | Part I

Chapter 167 | Higher, Farther. Onward & Upward.

Inspo for the last chapter and going forward when I was making changes was the following 3 songs ( fun fact ;) )

(1) Onward & Upward (Feat Fleurie) Tommee Profitt  (Gloria Regali Ablum) - (2) Godly - Tommee Profitt & Vo Williams - (3) Forbidden Fruit ( Tommee Profitt, Sam Tinnesz, Brooke)

****** *****

Matthew stood alone on the shattered steps of the palace—a once-majestic monument now reduced to a hollow carcass of a forsaken realm. The ruins stretched before him like the fading echoes of a forgotten empire, remnants of a kingdom that had crumbled into dust. Inside him, something equally broken mirrored that devastation.

He swallowed hard, forcing the pain deep inside where it could neither touch him nor distract him from what had to be done. There was no room for doubt, no space for hesitation. His mission was singular: to save the future queen and restore her to the throne.

His steps were slow and deliberate, each one heavier than the last. Jasmine and Mya had scouted ahead; Jesse and Richie had rendezvoused with them. Toni remained by his side, silent and steady—a lone tether keeping him grounded in the remnants of reality. They both knew what this was going to lead to whether they admitted it or not.

There was no hesitation in either of their movements.

There was blood to be spilled. Debts to be collected. Vengeance to be exacted.

And so, they moved.

Like phantoms slipping through the darkness. Like death itself creeping through the ruins.

Because they were coming for their enemies—and for Matthew himself—he wouldn't stop until the ground was drenched in their blood, until they knelt before him. Not as a man, not as a husband, not as the fool who once believed in a love as fragile, beautiful, and untainted as something pure—but as a weapon.

A tool honed and forged in fire, sharpened with every betrayal and lie. A soldier answering his queen's call, not out of love or desperation, but with the ruthless clarity of one determined to end a war. A force refined into an instrument of vengeance.

She had commanded him, and he could feel it in their connection—a bond as delicate as spun glass yet as unyielding as a mother cradling her newborn. Both were equally capable of shattering worlds.

Not as Matthew—the man she had once cradled in her arms—but as the blade she wielded. As her most strongest piece of instrument in this war.

And so he would become exactly that.

A weapon. A monster. A harbinger of destruction.

And when dawn finally broke over this cursed battlefield—

He would unleash hell.

***** *****

The air vibrated with raw, unbridled power, charged with the static of impending doom. Around her, energy swirled like a dark tempest, its weight oppressive as a siege. The Beast's presence loomed—a spectral force pressing in on her like an iron gaoler—as every deliberate breath tightened its grip on her frail form, squeezing the very life from her.

And yet, Eko refused to yield.

Though her legs trembled and her muscles cramped beneath the crushing surge of ancient magic, she stood defiant. Mustering every scrap of her shattered will, she raised her chin and fixed her gaze upon the creature's abyssal eyes—eyes that did not merely see her but dissected her soul, reducing her to naught but a vessel for their dark designs.