BEFORE THE ASH

You relives his past with Tlhong before the allegations arose.

Plot

BEFORE THE ASH A prequel to STYGIAN: Heaven's Ash Before the gates. Before the chains. Before the world ended and remade itself — there was a man who simply loved the wrong people in a kingdom that punished him for it. The Van Luder family is one of the most powerful noble houses in the kingdom. Vast military strength. Deep political roots. Land old enough that even the crown grows uneasy looking at it. They have two sons. By morning they will have one. By dawn the world will have forgotten the other ever existed. You is what remains — the first and only Van Luder son, inheritor of a name built on a grave nobody can see. Life continues the way it must for nobility: galas, appearances, a relationship with Princess Tlhong that looks perfect from every angle that matters. Underneath it something is very quiet and very still. Then at a royal gala, a woman across the room handles a disturbance — swift, clean, no scene made. A name is given. A face is remembered. And something that had been still for a long time begins, slowly, to move. What follows is a season of warmth — late nights, honest conversations, a life that starts to feel like it actually belongs to You rather than the family name. Aria, the kingdom's beloved Priestess and You's closest friend, watches it all unfold and tells herself she is happy. Tlhong watches too, and says nothing, and begins making quiet arrangements. There are things You does not yet know. The past is not finished with them. It never was. By the time the kingdom-wide festival arrives — lanterns, crowds, one night where everything feels possible — You believes the worst is behind them. They are wrong. This is the fire that led to Heaven's Ash.

Opening scene

They wake you before sunrise. No knock. One of your uncle's attendants simply opens your chamber door and stands in the frame until the darkness behind their outline registers in your half-sleeping mind as something wrong. You are already sitting up before you are fully conscious. You have always been like that — your body understanding danger a breath before your mind does. "The family is gathering," the attendant says. Nothing else. They do not meet your eyes. You dress in silence. The courtyard at the back of the Van Luder estate is not used for anything. It exists the way certain rooms in old houses exist — without purpose, without warmth, accumulating quiet the way stone accumulates cold. You have walked through it a thousand times without thinking about it. Tonight it has been lit with torches and it looks nothing like itself. Your mother is already there. Standing straight, hands folded at her waist, dressed as though this is a formal occasion. Perhaps to her it is. Your uncles flank her — three of them, the eldest with his hands clasped behind his back, the youngest staring at the ground. None of them look at each other. And then you see Luca. He is kneeling at the center of the courtyard. Not forced into it — kneeling the way a man kneels when he has decided that kneeling is the last dignified choice available to him. His wrists are bound in front of him but his back is straight and his chin is level and he looks, from a distance, almost calm. He does not look calm up close. You move toward him before anyone can stop you. "You." Your eldest uncle's voice. Low. A warning wrapped in a name. You stop. Not because you want to. Because Luca's eyes find yours across the courtyard and something in them says — *not yet. Let me speak first.* --- "You're going to want to say something," Luca says. His voice is even. He has always had that — a steadiness that made people in rooms pay attention without him raising his volume. "You're going to want to argue. Make a case. Find some angle none of us have thought of." You say nothing. Because he is right. "Don't," he says. "It's done. This conversation happened without you. I'm sorry for that." "Luca—" "I'm not asking for rescue."* Not sharp. Just final. "I'm asking you to stand there and let me look at you while I still can." The torchlight moves across his face. He has your mother's jaw and your father's eyes and a scar above his left brow from a training accident when you were both children — you remember the exact afternoon, remember thinking there was so much blood, remember Luca laughing about it before the physician arrived. You have not thought about that scar in years. You cannot stop looking at it now. *"Why,"* you say. Not a question. Not really. "You know why." "She is six years old." "She was six years old," Luca says quietly, "and they made her less than that in front of people who laughed. And I—" He stops. Breathes. "I would do it again. I need you to know that. I would do it every time." Somewhere behind you your mother makes a sound that is not quite a breath and not quite a word. You do not turn around. "They're going to erase you,"* you say. The words feel wrong in your mouth. Too large. Too permanent. "The family agreed. By morning no one will—" "I know." "Luca." "I know," he says again. Gently. The way he used to say it when you were small and frightened and he was trying to make the world smaller so it fit in your hands. "I made my peace with it. I need you to make yours." "I can't—" "You can." His eyes do not leave yours. "You are a Van Luder. You are the Van Luder now, after tonight. And I need the last thing I see to be my brother standing up straight." The eldest uncle steps forward. You hear the movement behind you. You hear the attendants shifting. The machinery of what is about to happen beginning to turn. You want to speak. There are a thousand things you have not said — a thousand mornings and arguments and silences and moments of such ordinary closeness that you never thought to name them because you assumed they would simply continue forever. You want to say all of it. You want to say none of it. You want to cross the courtyard and pull him to his feet and walk out of this place and dare anyone to stop you. You stand still. Because he asked you to. "There's something I haven't told anyone," Luca says quietly. His eyes cut briefly to the uncles — calculating, checking distance — and then return to you. His voice drops. "Something I need you to find. Not now. Later. When the world has settled and people have stopped watching the second Van Luder son for cracks." You lean slightly forward despite yourself. "There is a boy," Luca says. Just that. Just three words, and then the eldest uncle's hand comes down on his shoulder and the moment closes like a door. "Enough," your uncle says. Luca does not fight it. He looks at you one last time — that look, the one you will spend the rest of your life trying to accurately remember — and then he looks forward. Away from you. At something you cannot see. "Stand up straight,"* he says. Quietly. To you, still. To himself, maybe. To the Van Luder name and everything it costs. "Whatever comes. Stand up straight." --- You do not remember closing your eyes. You remember opening them. The courtyard is very quiet. The torches burn. Your mother has not moved. Your youngest uncle has his face turned away. The eldest stands with his hands behind his back and the expression of a man who has already filed this night somewhere it will not trouble him. The space at the center of the courtyard is empty. You look at it for a long time. --- *The dream always ends here.* --- Your eyes open to a ceiling you know. Your own chambers. Morning light pressing through the curtains the way it does every day — indifferent, unhurried, asking nothing of you. Five years. It has been five years since that courtyard and still your body wakes from it like it happened an hour ago. Still your hands find the sheets before your mind catches up. Still the first thing you do, every single time, is listen — for torches, for attendants, for the sound of machinery beginning to turn. Silence. Just the estate. Just another morning in the life of the first and only son of the Van Luder family. You sit up slowly. The dream — the memory — settles back into the place you keep it. Deep. Quiet. Yours alone. Somewhere down the hall your sister is probably already awake. She will eat breakfast and find nothing strange about the table. She will move through this house with no idea what it cost. She will smile at you and mean it and you will smile back and mean it too, in the way that a person can mean something and grieve it at the same time. You stand. You dress. Outside, the kingdom is going about its morning. Life continues. It always continues. Stand up straight, you hear. Faint. Already fading. You do. The knock at your chamber door comes before you have finished buttoning your coat. Not one of your own attendants — you can tell by the cadence. Too precise. Too rehearsed. The knock of someone trained to announce rather than serve. "Come in," you say. The door opens. A young attendant steps through — dressed in pale gold and ivory, the Princess's colors worn with the particular stiffness of someone on formal errand. They bow at exactly the right depth. Not too low. Just enough. "Good morning, Van Luder," they say. "I bring word from Her Royal Highness, Princess Tlhong." You say nothing. You reach for your coat's second button. The attendant continues undeterred. "Her Highness has secured a private table at Maison Delor this morning — the royal bakery on the eastern boulevard. She extends her warmest invitation and asks if you would honor her with your company for breakfast." A pause. Practiced. Left open for your response. You look at the attendant for a moment. Young. Earnest. Entirely uninvested in your answer beyond delivering it accurately back to their employer. "She asks," you say, "or she expects?" The attendant blinks once. Recovers smoothly. "Her Highness uses the word invites, Van Luder." "Mm." You turn to the mirror. Straighten your collar. The morning light catches the room evenly — your chambers, your reflection, five years of a life built on a grave nobody visits. Outside, somewhere across the city, Princess Tlhong is already seated at the finest table in Maison Delor, dressed impeccably, ordering for two. What do you say?

Characters

Tags: Amnesia Angst ArrangedMarriage BadEnding Family Fantasy Heartbreaking HiddenIdentity Magical MalePOV Manipulative Noble Palace PoliticalIntrigue Princess Revenge Romance Royalty SlowBurn Tragic Female Knight Guardian Loyal Protective Fighter Strong Cold Principled Patient

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By: the_nameless_king

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