The Ashwalker stopped at the edge of the lava river because the pull in its chest had gone quiet for the first time in a thousand miles. Ten feet of cracked black stone, wrapped in a cloak of burning ash, it stood over churning tar and molten rock. Pale hands broke the surface and sank again. Skeletal faces rose, screamed without sound, and slid back under. The Ashwalker had followed the pull across the dead waste to find whatever still lived. The pull had led here, to a river of the drowned, and then it had died. Behind the Ashwalker, its footprints cooled into a trail of black glass that ran to the horizon. On the far bank stood a cathedral of basalt and obsidian, its windows lit from within by fire. Spires clawed at the ash-choked sky. Something inside that building had pulled the Ashwalker across the world and then let go. The Ashwalker understood then that the last living thing in the Scorched Depths was not waiting to be found. It was waiting to be answered. The Ashwalker had walked because it believed stopping was death. Now stopping was the only way across. It stepped onto the river. The surface held for one step, then split. Molten rock climbed the Ashwalker's legs and cooled against the black stone of its body. Hands caught at its cloak and burned away. The Ashwalker did not sink. Each footfall pressed the flow down and froze it into a plate of glass. A bridge formed one step at a time behind it. When it reached the far bank, it turned and looked at what it had made: a road of cooled obsidian across the river of the drowned, wide enough for a procession, hard enough to hold a mountain. The Ashwalker climbed the steps of the cathedral and pushed open the doors. The nave was empty. No priest, no rival, no living thing. The pull was gone because there was nothing left to pull toward. The Scorched Depths had one walker left, and it had just built a road no one else could cross. The Ashwalker knelt at the center of the empty hall and pressed both hands to the floor. Cracks opened under its palms, filled with light, and cooled. It would forge a throne here, from the same glass it left behind with every step, and it would rule the only kingdom a dead world could offer: a kingdom of one.

The Ashwalker knelt at the center of the empty cathedral, palms pressed to the floor, and drew a slow map of glass beneath its hands. Cracks split the stone, filled with light, and cooled into a low ring that would one day be the base of a throne. The work was quiet. The pull in its chest was gone. Then, without warning, the pull returned. It was faint and it came from deeper in the building. The Ashwalker lifted its head. The nave stretched empty in front of it, but a second set of doors stood at the far end of the transept, chained shut. Fire showed through the seam. The pull tugged toward those doors and did not let go. The Ashwalker stood. Half-formed glass cracked under its weight and stayed behind. It could keep working and finish the throne of a dead kingdom, or it could follow the pull and learn whether the kingdom was dead at all. It walked toward the chained doors. Each step left a bright fracture that cooled black behind it. The chains were iron, thick as its wrist, welded to spikes that ringed the arch. The Ashwalker took the chains in both hands. The metal glowed, softened, and parted. The doors swung inward on a wall of smoke and orange light. Beyond them, a basalt bridge crossed a second river of lava inside the cathedral itself. Braziers burned along the rails. Stone sentinels crouched at the corners. On the far side of the bridge stood a figure the Ashwalker's own size: black stone, cracked, molten light bleeding from its chest and from the hollows of its eyes. It held a sword point-down between its hands. It did not move. The pull in the Ashwalker's chest pointed straight at it. The Ashwalker crossed the bridge. The basalt held. At the far side it stopped an arm's length from the figure and waited. Nothing happened. No breath, no shift. The eyes wept lava onto the stone. The Ashwalker reached out and touched the figure's shoulder. The surface was warm and did not give. It was carved. It had always been carved. The pull in the Ashwalker's chest snapped taut once more and then went out for good, as if a wire had been cut at both ends. The Ashwalker stood a long time at the end of the bridge. There was no living thing in the cathedral. There was no living thing anywhere the pull could reach. The last signal had led to a statue. The Ashwalker turned, walked back across the basalt, and returned to the nave. It knelt again in the ring of cooling glass and pressed its hands to the floor. The throne would be finished now. There was no one left to answer.

The Ashwalker knelt again in the ring of cooling glass and worked. The pull was gone. The cathedral was empty. It pressed its palms flat and drew the next arc of the base, watching the stone split and fill with light. Then, at the far end of the nave, the great doors it had entered by scraped open. Ash blew in across the floor. A figure walked through the doorway. It was thin, half the Ashwalker's height, wrapped in torn black cloth, its face hidden inside a hood. Two orange points burned where eyes should be. In one gloved hand it carried a staff crowned with pale fire. Behind it came two animals. A stag, tall as the figure, its hide split with molten cracks, obsidian antlers branching from its skull. A fox at the figure's heel, black-furred, ember-veined, small flames at its ears and tail. The three of them stopped a dozen paces from the ring of glass. The Ashwalker rose. Its own chest cracks brightened. It had been certain nothing living remained in reach. "You froze the river," the hooded figure said. The voice was dry and even. "We saw the bridge. We could not cross it. We came the long way around." The stag lowered its head. The fox sat. The figure planted the staff and did not step closer. "I am called Cinder Shepherd. These are what I keep. We have walked a long time to find whatever pulled us here." The Ashwalker looked at the three of them and understood. The pull had not been meant only for it. Something in this cathedral had called every living thing that could still answer, and this was what had answered. The Ashwalker said, "There is nothing here. The source was a carving." Cinder Shepherd was quiet a moment. Then: "There is you. There is the throne behind you. That is enough to have come for." The Ashwalker looked down at the half-formed ring at its feet. It had knelt to build the seat of a dead kingdom. The kingdom was not dead. Three living things stood in its cathedral, and one of them had named itself and asked, without asking, for a place inside these walls. The Ashwalker could order them out. It could finish the throne alone and rule an empty room. Or it could let them stay and rule something that could kneel or refuse. It stepped out of the ring of glass and walked halfway to them and stopped. "Come in," it said. "The doors stay open." Cinder Shepherd tapped the staff once on the floor. The stag moved forward. The fox followed. The Ashwalker turned back toward the unfinished throne and knew the work had changed. It would not be building a seat for itself alone now. It would be building the first seat of a court.