The Ashen Prince
War does not begin with fire. It begins in silence.
In the breath before the scream
In the pause before the blade falls
The war had always been here.
I have never known a world without it.
Men, with their jaded armor passed through my village, their eyes hollow, their bodies nearly vacant of presence; little more than ghosts wrapped in skin. They came to forage what little food we had left, to drink from our wells and conscript away the strongest boys. And sometimes they spoke of the Ashen Prince, cursing his name through mouthfuls of stolen bread. A warlord, they said, a phantom made of soot and anguish. Wherever he walks, the land withers, the rivers blacken, and the sky weeps fire.
I never asked where he came from.
The walls were beginning to whisper, so I started to head home to what remained. The more I headed away from the village, the destruction became increasingly apparent. Faces hid in the cracks of collapsed rubble, and the wind carried a scent of burning wood and something worse. I closed my eyes and listened to the silence left behind.
But the silence was never empty.
The black bird was always there, perched atop my shoulder—its feathers slick as oil, and its voice soft as shadow. It had no eyes, yet it saw me. It had no weight, yet it pressed against me like a heavy burden; a curled shadow within my mind.
“The Ashen Prince is Coming,” the bird whispered.
I couldn’t bear the thought of running away. Not from someone like him. Not from someone who could do such things.
I shook my head. “I won’t run.”
“Then what will you do?”
I clenched my fists. I didn’t know. I only knew that running wasn’t an option for me. The village was dying, the few houses remaining were hollowed out, people were migrating in large groups. The war would come here soon enough, and I needed to find the Ashen Prince before he found me.
I left that night, my footsteps swallowed by the silence of the dead.
The bird followed.
Chapter 2
When the forest called out to me, I didn’t know it could scream—crying out as if in agony.
The road seemed to stretch endlessly, bending through the ruins of forgotten places. The further I walked, the worse the world became.
The trees watched me.
They rustled as if filled with unease. Then they began to whisper, their voices slipping through the wind like fingers trailing against my skin.
And then they screamed.
The sound tore through the forest as I passed, a raw anguished wail that rattled my skull. Their bark split and cracked, leaves curling into ash as they drifted to the ground. The scent of burning wood filled my nose.
I pushed my hands into my ears, “It hurts, why are they crying?”
The bird appeared thinly out of air, its feathers black as the sky before a storm. “They remember you.”
“I don’t understand.”
I didn’t understand anything. I hurried forward, my feet crushing the fallen leaves—only to realize they weren’t leaves at all. They were bones.
Chapter 3
At first, I thought the distant sound of boots was thunder roaring across the hills. But then, their banners appeared on the horizon, waving in the wind like broken wings.
I didn’t know why they were coming this way.
I ran.
The city was hollow from the war, but not empty. The streets were lined with bodies, not fresh, but old and of ash.
I didn’t want to be here.
“You seek the Ashen Prince,” a voice said.
I turned.
She sat atop of a broken fountain, her dress of pure white.It looked as if woven from the moon’s light, untouched by the world. It was the kind of white that didn’t seem to reflect light—it held it. Almost like she had stepped out of a realm beyond human reach; ethereal.
“You’ve already found him.”
My breath hitched, “Where?”
She looked at me for a moment. In her eyes, the fire behind me flickered. A chill ran through my spine as I turned, and there it was—the roaring, hungry flames painting the sky with orange and ash—as if the world was ending.
She pointed to me.
Chapter 4
I laughed, a broken laugh. “That’s not true.”
She didn’t smile.
“Do you remember how the war began?” she asked.
I tried.
I remember the silver birds shooting across the sky. I remember the black rain staining my hands. I remember the sound of marching boots.
“But before that?”
“I remember…” nothing.
It was like trying to grab smoke. Every time I reached for it, it curled away.
“You have walked through fire,” she said. “Through ruin and sorrow. You have gathered the voices of the lost, carried the weight of all their grief. Do you not feel the crown upon your head?”
I lifted a hand to my hair.
Nothing.
And yet—I looked down. The soot buried beneath my nails. The grass shriveled where I stood. The trees screamed as I passed.
I was never looking for the Ashen Prince.
I was looking for myself.
I took a step back. “No.”
The bird on my shoulder did not move. “The war has always lived inside of you.”
Chapter 5
The girl stepped closer.
“Please,” she began to whisper.
“No,” I cried.
“For the sake of everyone—“
“Stop it!”
“—please die.”
“No!” My voice cracked, and I fell to the ground.
Her hands curled into fists as she continued. “You must.”
“I don’t!” I shook my head violently. “I didn’t do anything! I don’t remember—“
“You don’t remember because you refuse to!” Her voice rose, raw and with desperation. “The world is dying, don’t you see? The grass withers where you step, the rivers recoil from your touch, the trees scream when you pass!”
“Shut up!” I pressed my hands to my ears but I could still hear her, her voice carving a path to my skull.
“The army isn’t hunting you because they hate you!” She was shouting now. “They’re just trying to save what’s left of the world!”
“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” My breathing fled in uneven gasps.
“I don’t want to die.” I cried.
Silence.
Heavier than the sky.
I stood up, my chest heaving, my hands shaking, my heartbeat loud in my ears. She stared at me, her lips parted hollow as if to say something.
The birds voice seemed softer now. “To live is to suffer. It is cruel, it is fleeting, it is futile. And yet—as small and wretched as you are, even knowing the pain that awaits—you still claw forward, desperate to find something beautiful.”
I want to prove I can be something more than destruction.
But the girl—her face, her voice, her trembling hands—she was afraid. She had every right to be.
I turned toward the city gates and I ran.
Chapter 6
I had a lot of time to think. The girl’s words still rang in my head.
“Please for the sake of everyone—please die.”
I had run from her. From her pleading, the truth she forced me to see. But no matter how fast I ran, the war was always right behind me.
In the shriveled, blackened earth beneath my feet. In the soil that turned to dust that in turn swirled with the wind. In the trees whose roots twisted away from me in agony. I heard the earth weeping—low creaking wails, deep and sorrowful, like a funeral song carried through the wind.
The rivers I crossed turned thick and dark, the moment my reflection touched its surface. The sky above me remained full of clouds but without rain, as if the heavens refused to weep for me.
And behind me—always behind me—the flames rose.
They stalked at the dead fields, swallowing the brittle stalks in their hungry mouths. There was no warmth in their glow, just a bitter, empty coldness that settled in my bones.
I stopped.
“Why?” The question slipped from my throat. “Why me?” I asked, but I did not know who I was asking.
“Please just stop.” I whispered desperately.
The fires did not stop raging.
The trees did not stop crying.
The army did not stop marching.
I dug my fingers through the dirt, but it all crumbled at my touch, turning to ash. It slipped through my grasp like something that had never been real at all.
I was not meant to exist.
Not here. Not anywhere.
I had refused to believe it before. I had fought , had screamed, had clawed toward life like an insect drowning in a flood. But what kind of life is this? A body that brings ruin with every breath? Hands that could only break and burn and take?
I had spent so long running and not once has the world tried to hold me back.
Not once have the trees tried to shelter me, or the wind tried to carry me, or the rivers tried to guide me home.
Because I had no home.
The world had already buried me.
The black bird landed beside me, tilting its head—its eyeless gaze staring through me.
“You understand now,” it murmured.
I swallowed, staring down at my shaking hands. The fingertips gray with soot.
“I don’t want to die,” I said.
A stroke of wind stirred the ashes around me. The trees groaned. The flames devoured another stretch of earth.
“But,” I said, closing my fingers into fists, “I don’t want to be this, either.”
The black bird said nothing.
The marching had stopped. The army stood at the top of the valley, their weapons raised, their faces wary. They did not charge, they merely watched.
Behind me, the girl stood. Her pure white dress, stirring in the wind.
For the first time in my life, I was ready.
I spread my arms, breathing in the scent of the burning earth. But, there was something beneath it all—something new, something fragile just waiting to be reborn.
“I am the Ashen Prince,” I said, my voice steady now. “I was born of war. But I do not choose to be its servant.”
I turned around.
Her eyes widened with something close to horror. Her lips opened again as if to say something.
“Wait—“
It was too late, I had made my choice.
I planted my feet in the ashen earth and just let go.
The wind roared. The world shifted.
Ash rose—not in death, but in rebirth. The land trembled, the charred earth cracking open—not in ruin, but into something new.
Beneath the layers of blackened soil, something stirred. Something long buried.
Life.
I felt it, giving itself to the land. Not fire. Not destruction. But something softer. Something clean.
The grass grew where my shadow had once killed it. The rivers, once black and sluggish, shimmered with something clearer than water. The trees sighed—not in pain, but in relief.
I felt the gentle wind against my soul. The sky cleared. And from the heavens drifted ash upon me. Soft as snow.
I was never meant to belong.
But if I had to be a monster, then let this be my final act.
The weight I had felt all along, of me, unraveled—spilling out into the world—giving back everything I had taken.
The army lowered their weapons. The girl pressed a hand to her lips, her eyes filling with something like grief.
I smiled.
For the first time, the wind did not carry the whispers of war.
For the first time, the world did not scream.
For the first time, I was not afraid.
And then, I was nothing at all.
