Queen of Ash

Too late.

Giveaway winners! 

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway! Don't be discouraged if you didn't win this giveaway there will be one more giveaway with three winners at the end of the book. (The book is almost over there's about 6ish chapters left) Thank you again for reading and loving this book!

In third place winning a signed art print is....   @gagermoff

In second place winning a poster signed by me is.... cuteasslydhiaa_ 

And finally in first place winning an art print a poster and an exclusive chapter is...... @husnahussein_

Please DM for details!

Rye

How did things go so wrong so quickly? I sat on Jase's balcony, letting the cold air cool with raging fire under my skin. Emerson didn't give me a chance to explain. I was going to tell her, I was. I wanted to give her the full story and then that thing with Gale happened, but I was going to tell her. She just assumed that I was like my parents, that I would choose the crown over her.

Maybe she right, maybe I was like my parents. If that's what everyone expected of me why shouldn't I be like them.

I was so lost in thought I didn't hear Jase walk out onto the balcony, or maybe he just didn't want me to hear him.

"Just give her a few days, and then explain." He pulled over a metal chair and sat next to me. His neck was still bloody from where Emerson held him at knife point. I knew Jase and I knew he would never blame her for that. She wasn't herself, we both knew that.

"We don't have a few days. We have the Bellum parade through the city tomorrow and then the Bellum after that. She's going to leave—" I couldn't say the rest of the sentence. She was going to leave me and maybe I deserved it. Maybe I deserved to pay the price from the crimes of my family.

"Finish that sentence." Jase looked out from the balcony, he turned his head slowly towards me. I almost flinched from looking at him. He was bruised and had blood running down his neck, he looked like hell.

"She's going to leave and I'll have to forfeit the crown." I lied. That's not what I was going to say. My Father told me not to be seen as weak. Admitting that Emerson leaving felt like someone ripped out my heart and left a hole where it had once been would have made me weak. That didn't mean that it didn't feel like every timed I breathed there was glass stabbing at my lungs, but I wanted to keep breathing, just to breathe the same air as her for just a little longer.

"Even I know that's not what you were going to say," Jase laughed. "Rye it's okay if you love her. That doesn't make you any less of a King, in fact it makes you a better one. Love can be a weakness, but it can be the greatest form of strength." I swallowed hard, and ripped my eyes away from his.

"It doesn't matter if I love her." Each word ripped the air from my lungs. "She doesn't love me." Jase rose from his chair.

"I swear you're both dumb as shit." He stood in front of me. "You don't see what I see. How she looks at you, how you look at her. It's always been that simple with the two of you. You both love each other. Yet some how the two of you keep messing it up from yourself."

"It's not that simple."

"Yes it is. You love her or you don't. That's all it comes down too. We both know you were going to tell her about her family, so why do we both know that and she doesn't. Why do you continue to sit here feeling sorry that's she leaving you when you can convince her to stay." Jase's voice was raising, which rarely happened.