From the Throne of Ash

I didn’t storm this place. I arrived after everyone else decided they didn’t want it.

There was no coronation. Just the smell of smoke that never fully clears and a seat left empty because holding it requires attention long after the fire goes out. Ash settles into everything. Under nails. In lungs. In memory.

I stopped apologizing somewhere along the way. Not as a declaration. It simply became inefficient.

What people call my turning was quieter than they like to imagine. No single betrayal. No dramatic fall. I stopped cutting away the parts of myself that made others uneasy. I kept the traits that worked. Control. Appetite. The preference for deciding over hoping.

If that was a betrayal, it was internal, and it felt like relief.

Darkness didn’t arrive. It had been furnished for years. I just closed the door and stayed.

Heroes misunderstand this part. They believe power announces itself. They expect arcs, witnesses, the reassurance of being seen doing the right thing. The hero’s journey promises meaning in exchange for obedience. Fight, suffer, wait.

I opted out of waiting.

Heroes are predictable because they have to be. They announce themselves. They believe conviction substitutes for strategy. They trust that righteousness will carry them through complexity.

I let them believe that.

Most decisions worth making live in the gray. Good and evil are labels for people who don’t have to clean up afterward. Values aren’t revealed in moments of clarity. They’re chosen, then paid for over time.

Power leaves debris. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or insulated. I don’t collect ashes as trophies. I step around them. I remember what they cost. I continue anyway.

Detachment isn’t numbness. It’s discipline. Feeling everything and acting on none of it is just another way to avoid responsibility. Feeling and acting anyway is harder. That’s the work.

Destruction is rarely sudden. It looks abrupt only to those who weren’t paying attention. Most things collapse because they were already unstable. I simply stopped holding them up.

Creation comes later. Quietly. Without witnesses. Without applause.

Power is not intoxicating. Responsibility is sobering. The godlike sensation people imagine is mostly paperwork and irreversible choices. Still, I prefer authorship to permission.

This is not cruelty dressed as philosophy. It’s honesty without reassurance. I don’t need absolution to be effective.

Ash is not an ending. It’s what remains when illusions are finished.

The throne stays because I stay.

That seems to trouble people more than anything I’ve done.