Crowned in Crimson Cinders

Chapter 41: Reflection

The hours crawled by, each one a heavy weight in the silence of my room. My only companions were my thoughts, a relentless echo chamber of yesterday's horrors. The chaos, the screams, the destruction—it all played out again and again in my mind, a nightmarish reel I couldn't escape.

It felt unreal, impossible. I'd never witnessed fire devour a stone building with such terrifying speed. The only explanation that made sense was something beyond nature, something supernatural.

The cold, hard truth still remained: Clif is dead. Sebastian is dead. Tristain is dead. My brothers. Gone. Forever.

If only I had one more moment with them. Just one. To tell them I loved them, to thank them for being there when no one else was. I wish they were here now, so I could hug them, feel their presence one last time.

I thought of all the missed opportunities, the moments I'd taken for granted. I'd give anything to have them back, anything at all. I'd burn this entire castle to the ground. I'd burn it all.

I wouldn't let anything stop me from finding who was behind all of this. I'd break every law in the kingdom if it meant bringing the murderer to justice.

Those flames from yesterday weren't natural. They spread too fast, erupted too suddenly. There was no way the church should have collapsed that quickly. Someone must have weakened its structure to ensure a catastrophic outcome. The flames themselves moved as if they had a mind of their own, slithering down beams and seemingly reacting whenever someone tried to use their powers against them.

And the wind. It seemed to fan the flames, making them impossible to extinguish, yet there had been little to no wind on the way to the funeral. It was highly unlikely the weather would change so drastically, allowing for such heavy gusts. This had to be someone with the ability to control the wind, and the only two people who possessed that power were withing theser castle walls.