Chapter 106 — Queen of Ash

Chapter 106 — Queen of Ash
Amara

I am up before the light breaches the blinds. I didn’t sleep. Today is the day—the day I end it all. The last night I’ll ever spend trapped in his arms, the last time I’ll have to bow and pretend to be his good girl.

A slow smile curls across my lips as I imagine it—the moment his blood runs hot over my hands, the look in his eyes when he realizes he didn’t break a girl. He forged a monster.

The wedding won’t begin until late afternoon, but I’ve already been awake for hours. The dagger glints faintly from the vanity light, slick with the polish I used to clean it after every stroke of practice. I’d spent the night in the closet, where no camera could reach me, practicing my strike until the muscles in my arm burned. Over and over. The rhythm of survival. The rhythm of vengeance. When I finally slide the blade into the hem of the wedding gown hanging across the room, it fits perfectly—hidden, deadly, patient. Like me.

The dress waits in silence, draped on its mannequin by the window. Black silk and dark steel threaded together like smoke caught in fabric. It isn’t a gown; it’s a warning. Every line, every stitch feels like a blade waiting to draw blood.

Satisfied, I step into the bathroom and turn on the shower, letting the steam rise until the mirror disappears. The water hisses when it hits my skin. It scorches over the mark above my chest—his initials, seared into me like cattle. I run my fingers across it, tracing the raised edge. I used to hate it. Now I wear it like a badge. Not his mark, but a reminder. I survived. I outlasted. I became something he can’t destroy.

When I finally step out, the air feels heavy, humming. My skin is still damp when the door slides open. A guard enters, holding a tray like it’s a bomb he’s afraid to drop.

“Breakfast,” he mutters, eyes glued to the floor.

He doesn’t look at me—doesn’t dare. He fears not me, but what Killian would do if he lingered too long. That’s what I’ve become in this place. A ghost everyone pretends not to see. A walking omen.

I watch him back out of the room, the door hissing shut behind him. The silence afterward feels like power. I sit, eat, and keep my posture perfect—submissive, calm, the obedient bride. My hands steady, my eyes soft. Just a few more hours.

When the last bite is gone, I rise and cross to the vanity. The papers I’ve hidden there—maps, paths, tiny notes of timing—wait like old friends. I trace one line with my finger: the garden. Romantic, isn’t it?

It would be beautiful to anyone else. Ivory archways, roses draped like silk, fountains whispering in the distance. I designed every inch myself. A queen’s wedding. But even the prettiest chains are still chains.

If I failed today, he’d make me watch Phoebe die first. Then Thomas. That’s how Killian played his games—pain first, mercy never. If I failed, death would almost be kindness compared to what he’d leave me with. I fold the notes carefully and tuck them away just as a knock raps on the door.

“Hair and makeup,” a woman’s voice calls from the other side.

I breathe out once—steady, slow—and open the door.

She enters like a breeze of false light, carrying brushes and curling irons, her eyes full of soft excitement. “You must be the bride!” she chirps. “You’re going to be breathtaking.”

Her words almost make me laugh. If she only knew.

“Make me look like a queen,” I say evenly, sitting before the mirror. “A bad-ass queen.”

She blinks, startled, then grins. “That dress certainly says you’re not the usual bride. Most girls want something soft, but that—” she glances at the black gown shimmering by the window, “—that’s power.”

“Good,” I reply. “Make them fear me. I’m no delicate flower. Not anymore.”

She starts brushing my hair, sectioning it carefully, and the silence stretches between us—thick and charged. I watch her reflection move behind me, hands twisting curls into an elegant weapon. The rhythm of the brush scraping my scalp feels almost like a heartbeat counting down.

Every pull of the brush, every curl pinned in place, pulls me deeper into the memories.

Killian before the monster. The day he laughed and the world didn’t yet burn.
The fight. The sentence.
Liam’s eyes the night I thought I’d finally found peace.
The old man who tended my wounds.
Pike’s shift from enemy to ally.
Phoebe’s screams, her mark.
Thomas—my brother in every way that mattered, calling me little demon with that soft, crooked grin. His voice steady even when the world fell apart.

Every moment carved into me, every scar a map that led here.

The stylist murmurs something about a crown braid, but I barely hear her. I’m watching the mirror—the woman staring back at me isn’t the one who was captured. She’s the one who learned how to survive captivity.

Each curl she pins feels like plating armor over my head. Every lock twisted and secured feels like forging a crown out of war itself. The air smells of heat and hairspray, but beneath it all, I can still smell iron.

I glance once more toward the dress. The black silk seems to shimmer even in shadow, the faintest edges stitched with threads of dark silver. It looks almost alive. And in that moment, I realize it’s not just fabric waiting to be worn—it’s the final piece of my transformation.

They say a bride wears white to symbolize purity. Mine wears black to bury it.

The woman finishes and steps back, admiring her work. “You look powerful,” she says softly, almost reverent.

“I am,” I answer.

She smiles, unaware of the truth in those words, and begins packing up her tools. When the door closes behind her, I stay still. The silence returns, sharp and heavy.

I reach up and touch my mark again—the seared initials, the scar, the brand. It burns faintly beneath my fingers. He thought it was a claim of ownership, but it’s my reminder that I endured. My badge. My proof that even monsters bleed.

I stand and face the window. The garden is visible through the glass, sunlight spilling over the archway and its delicate roses. The air outside is calm, beautiful even. And yet every flower there was grown from soil he watered with blood.

Today, that soil gets fed again.

The thought steadies me.

My hands slide down my sides, over my ribs, to the faint bulge in the hem of the gown where the dagger waits. My breath catches—not from fear, but from focus. I picture it again: the blade slicing through silk, through skin, through everything that ever tied me to him.

It will slide in smooth. Like butter. Like vengeance.

For a moment, I close my eyes. I see his face. I hear his voice—the one that used to whisper, I’ll always find you, little one.
Let him find me now.

The clock ticks once, sharp in the quiet.

I open my eyes. The reflection in the mirror no longer looks human. She looks sovereign.

The monster he made is ready to bury her creator.

I stare at the dress and whisper,
“You wanted a queen, Killian. You’ll meet her today.”