I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
https://www.patréon.com/emperordragon
________________________________________
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Ashes and Silence
"We just have to stop the bleeding—" I said, dropping to my knees beside him. My hands hovered over his wound, already crackling with faint, desperate arcs of lightning. They trembled, as if they understood what my heart refused to accept. "Then I'll take you to Emily. She'll fix you up. She always—she always—does."
I pressed my hand against the wound, forcing myself to ignore the heat radiating from his broken body, the slick warmth of blood spilling through my fingers. Too fast. Too much. Too dark. The wound wasn't closing. No matter how much pressure I put on it, it was like trying to plug a hole in the ocean.
"Don't," Richard said, voice quiet—so quiet. But there wasn't pain in it. Not fear either. Just… resignation. Like someone settling into the inevitable.
Then he slowly turned his arm—his left forearm—so I could see it.
Or what little remained of it.
Once, it had been something to be feared and respected. A mark of purpose, of legacy, of battles won and horrors endured. Etched in ancient lines and bound with primal magic, it had wrapped around his arm like a crown of vines—thorned and regal. Alive with power. Now, it was barely more than a memory. The runes were ghostly. Faded. Hollow outlines of what they once were.
As I watched, one of those delicate lines flickered… like a dying ember… and vanished.
My breath caught. My pulse stopped.
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no…"
"It's been fading for months," Richard said. His voice was steady, like he was commenting on the weather. Calm. Detached. Too calm.
I couldn't speak. Couldn't look away from his arm. My throat tightened like a noose.
When I became the True Alpha, I felt unstoppable. I never felt so powerful. The world had bent at my feet. I moved like lightning. I brought down horrors with my hands.
But now, here in this crumbling ruin, beneath blood-soaked stone and a sky choked with clouds…
I couldn't save the man who raised me.
"I should've told you," he murmured, glancing at the ceiling—or maybe something far beyond it. "But you had more important things to deal with. And me? I had my pride."
A dry cough escaped him. Just one. But blood painted his lips, dark and final.
"This life… it gives us a lot," he said. "Purpose. Strength. A reason to keep moving forward, even when everything else falls apart." His eyes found mine again. "But it takes, too. It doesn't ask. It just… takes. A piece here. A piece there. Until there's nothing left."
I nodded, because I didn't trust myself to speak. The truth in his words hurt too much.
"I had a wife," he said after a moment, and the words felt like an old secret, finally set free. "Before I was just a hunter. She was the brightest thing in my life. She didn't just walk into a room—she lit it up. And when she died, that light… left me. I didn't know how to go on. So I lit other fires instead. Small ones. Ones I could control."
His hand lifted weakly and rested against my shoulder. It was barely a touch, like the last breath of a breeze.
"This?" he said, voice almost a whisper. "This is better than dying in some bed, wasting away while you pretend it doesn't hurt to watch me rot. I couldn't have stood that. I'd rather go … knowing you're ready. That you don't need me anymore."
Tears blurred the edges of my vision, turned the world into water and flame.
"Don't say that," I rasped, voice barely holding together.
"It's true," he said. "You've surpassed me, Lucas. In every way that matters. I gave you everything I had… and you still found more. Found yourself."
His fingers fumbled at his coat pocket, and after a moment, he pulled out a small cloth pouch. Old, carefully sealed. I knew what it was the moment I saw it—he always carried it with him. His wife's ashes. The last piece of the light he'd once lost.
"Burn me," he said, placing it into my shaking hands. "And bury me with her."
I held it like it might break, my hands trembling like brittle leaves in winter wind.
"Live, Lucas," he said. "Live in a way I couldn't. Don't follow the darkness into its depths just because you know how. Don't let it hollow you out the way it did me. Be more."
"I promise," I whispered, voice cracking, breaking under the weight of everything I couldn't say.
He smiled. Not the grin of a warrior. Not the sharp smirk of a man who'd faced monsters and won.
Just a quiet, tired smile. Crooked and worn. Real.
And then, with a final breath, the light in his eyes dimmed.
The silence that followed swallowed everything. The chamber, the battle, my heart. There were no howls. No mourning bells. Just silence.
The strongest man I had ever known—gone.
I carried him from the ruins in my arms.
Not as a hunter. Not as a warrior.
A few hundred paces beyond the shattered stone, beneath the dense arms of old trees, where sunlight still dared to shine through the leaves, I found a quiet place.
And there, I built the pyre.
Not with sigils. Not with some ritual.
I lit it with my claws.
The fire caught instantly. It rose high, roaring to life as if the forest itself understood what was being given to the flame.
He burned like a star, like something holy. His life, his stories, his pain—all of it curling upward in smoke and light. I stood there, motionless, as the blaze devoured the body but not the memory. I saw flashes—him teaching me to fight, to move, to survive. His laughter. His anger. His pride.
And when only ash remained, I knelt beside the pyre, and with hands gentler than they'd ever been in battle, I gathered every piece.
I placed it in the pouch.
Silently. Reverently.
Then I stood, and I turned north.