Chapter Summary:
With the Cold Council forced into retreat, their counterattack comes not through violence—but politics. Echo is summoned to the Five Nations Tribunal to answer for her rebellion. The world watches as her fate hangs in the balance. Meanwhile, Kael uncovers the true legacy of the Ashryn line—and a crown meant not just for power, but for unity.
Chapter 81: Trial by Fire
The summons arrived at dawn.
A single parchment.
Sealed with the mark of the Five Nations.
You are hereby summoned to stand trial for the crimes of rebellion, destruction of state property, and unlawful possession of Flameborn power.
Echo read the words three times.
Then dropped the parchment onto the burning hearth.
"They're scared," Kael said from the doorway.
"They should be," she murmured.
But fear wasn't why they called her.
This wasn't about justice.
It was about control.
If they couldn't chain her with contracts or kill her with machines, they'd try something worse:
Public disgrace.
By midmorning, Emberhold buzzed like a hive.
The tribunal would be held in Neutral Hall—a diplomatic chamber buried beneath the old courthouse in Arven City, where the nations convened in times of conflict.
Kael offered to go in her place.
Echo refused.
"They want to strip me down in front of the world," she said. "Let them try."
He nodded.
Then pressed a small object into her hand.
"What is this?"
He smiled. "A reminder of who you are."
She opened her palm.
It was a ring.
Old, blackened gold. Marked with the sigil of the First Flame.
"I found it in the Ashryn vault," he said. "The last Queen of Fire wore it before she vanished. The Council buried it in the earth and tried to rewrite history."
She stared at it.
The metal was warm.
Like it remembered her.
"I'm not a queen," she whispered.
Kael held her gaze. "You could be."
The Tribunal Hall was colder than she imagined.
It smelled of paper, magic ink, and iron dust.
Five judges sat at the arc bench—one for each nation.
Council observers lined the walls, their eyes like knives.
Echo stood in the center, alone.
Except she wasn't.
Kael stood in the gallery.
Nerya and three rebel captains behind him.
And hundreds watching through projection screens around the capital.
Her trial was not private.
It was theater.
Exactly how the Council wanted it.
"Echo Vale," intoned the High Judge of Ilvaron, a silver-haired woman whose voice echoed through the stone chamber, "you stand accused of violating the Corporate Treaty of 3001, inciting civil unrest, and unlawfully commanding elemental magic unapproved by the Arcane Regulation Division."
Echo didn't flinch.
"I did what I had to do to survive."
A murmur ran through the gallery.
The judge narrowed her eyes.
"Survival does not excuse rebellion."
"No," Echo said. "But silence does excuse tyranny?"
More murmurs.
The judge banged her staff. "You will answer questions, not pose them."
Echo stepped forward. "You want to know what I did? I broke a system that was already breaking us."
The Frostborn representative snorted. "You burned half a city."
"I saved it. From your Council. From the Void Flame. From lies!"
Someone in the audience clapped before being silenced.
The judges leaned into one another.
Whispered.
Then the Ilvaron judge nodded. "And what of your lineage? You claim no House. Yet your power aligns with records of the Vale royal line. Is it true?"
The question fell like a blade.
Echo hesitated.
Then nodded.
"I'm the last of them. I didn't want to be."
"And the ring?" the judge pressed.
Echo looked at Kael.
Then slipped it on.
Flames whispered over her skin.
Power—not uncontrolled, but anchored—surged through her limbs.
"I didn't come here to kneel," she said quietly.
"I came to remind you…"
She raised her hand.
"…that fire remembers."
And the ring flared to life.
The crowd gasped.
The judges leaned back as heat shimmered through the chamber.
But no one burned.
No one screamed.
Echo didn't attack.
She controlled it.
That was the real threat.
She wasn't dangerous because she was wild.
She was dangerous because she wasn't.
Because they couldn't twist the narrative anymore.
Couldn't frame her as a rogue heiress or broken rebel.
She was something far harder to kill:
A leader.
After a long silence, the judges conferred.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Finally, the Ilvaron judge stood.
"The Tribunal finds that Echo Vale's actions, while unorthodox, were not in violation of inter-nation law due to the invocation of sovereign lineage rights under Clause 17-A of the Founders' Charter."
Kael blinked. "She invoked what?"
Echo turned her head slightly. "I read the old laws. Guess they didn't expect one of us to survive."
The judge's lips twitched.
"Your titles are reinstated. Your charges dropped."
"But," said the Frostborn judge, "be warned—any further unrest, and no old law will protect you."
Echo nodded.
"I'm not here to start wars."
She paused.
"Just to end the ones you forgot existed."
Outside the hall, Kael caught her in a quiet embrace.
"You did it."
"No," she said. "We did."
She pulled back. "What now?"
Kael's gaze darkened. "Now we find the rest of the Ember Relics."
"The ones the Council buried?"
He nodded. "The First Flame was shattered into five pieces. One for each nation. If we find them all…"
"We can fix the Void Flame."
He looked at her.
"Or burn it out completely."
Back at Emberhold, the city bells rang in triumph.
But far away, in the Council's private tower in Valtaris, Soren watched the broadcast.
He said nothing.
Until another figure stepped out of the shadows.
A woman. Eyes like obsidian.
"She's rising," she said.
Soren nodded. "Then we push harder."
The woman smiled.
"There's always a greater fire."