When Love Turns to Ash Novel – Chapter 7
Chapter 7
The night of The Sterling Order’s annual Solstice Gala arrived.
The grand hall of the estate blazed with light, filled with America’s elite—politicians, industrialists, figures of immense wealth and influence, all members or associates of the Order.
Music played, champagne flowed.
Seraphina stood at the center of it all, radiant and powerful, Julian at her side.
Then, the great double doors of the hall creaked open.
A hush fell over the assembly.
Silas walked in.
He was battered, his clothes torn, but he walked tall. In his arms, he carried Willow, her small face pale, her eyes bandaged. In his other hand, he gripped the Heartwood Staff. It still looked dead, but there was a tension around it now, a thrumming Silas could feel.
“Silas!” Seraphina’s voice was sharp, cutting through the silence. “Guards! Remove him! He is not welcome here!”
A few Order members, acting as security, moved toward him.
Silas ignored them all. He walked steadily toward the center of the hall, directly toward Seraphina.
The guards hesitated, sensing something in his demeanor, in the chilling quiet that had enveloped the room.
“This has gone far enough, Silas,” Seraphina said, her voice losing some of its confidence.
He stopped a few feet from her. He looked at her, then at Julian, then at the assembled crowd.
He raised the Heartwood Staff.
“Long ago,” his voice, though not loud, filled the vast hall, “I was a guardian. Of the wild places. Of the ancient balance.”
He thrust the base of the staff onto the marble floor.
A shockwave, silent but palpable, spread through the room.
The lights in the hall flickered, dimmed. The crystals on the chandeliers vibrated.
The Heartwood Staff began to glow.
Not with a soft light, but with an intense, ethereal radiance—green and gold and deep brown, the colors of the ancient forests. It pulsed with power, drawing energy from the air, from the opulent decorations, even, it seemed, from the astonished people themselves.
Silas’s form began to change.
The weariness, the injuries—they seemed to melt away. He grew taller, his features shifting, becoming both more ancient and more powerful. Ethereal light wrapped around him, his eyes glowing with the same inner fire as the staff.
His true form, the Guardian Spirit, was re-emerging.
The attendees gasped, some cried out in fear. Julian Thorne’s smug expression vanished, replaced by stark terror. Damien whimpered and hid behind him.
“What… what is this sorcery?” Julian stammered, trying to step in front of Seraphina, but his legs seemed unwilling to move.
Silas, or the being he now was, simply glanced at Julian.
Julian was flung back, as if by an invisible force, crashing into a table laden with food and drink.
The message was clear. His power was absolute here.
The crowd fell to their knees, a wave of terror and awe washing over them.
They recognized power when they saw it, and this was power beyond their gilded comprehension.