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- Herausgeber: tredition
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
What if the child of a tyrant was born to break the chains of kingship? In a world consumed by dark magic and ruled by fire-forged bloodlines, a prophecy foretells the rise of a child who will end the age of cruelty. Born of royal blood but raised in hiding, Kaelen is the flamebearer who never asked to be chosen. Hunted by the empire his grandfather built, trained in secret by a humble farmer, and haunted by dreams of destiny, Kaelen must walk through war, betrayal, and spirit-bound fire to fulfill a fate that could free or destroy a kingdom. Armed with a golden flaming sword and a heart that chooses mercy, Kaelen will face warlords, cursed generals, and the seduction of power itself. But to heal a broken world, he must first survive it—and become the king who refuses the throne. The Healer King: From Ashes Rises the Healer-King is a sweeping epic of prophecy, rebellion, and redemption—a fantasy saga of love, war, and the fierce choice to lead not through fear… but through flame and forgiveness.
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Seitenzahl: 151
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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CLAIRE SMITH
THE HEALER KING
From Ashes Rises the Healer-King
Copyright © 2025 by CLAIRE SMITH
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
CLAIRE SMITH asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Claire can be reached on [email protected]
First edition
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy Find out more at reedsy.com
At the tomb of the Healer-King
Here lies the First True Seeker,
Born of fire, but bearer of peace.
He rose not to conquer, but to restore.
He healed the wounds of a broken world—
and with a golden blade, silenced the dark.
From ashes he rose, not crowned in gold,
but in the hearts of those he saved.
Contents
Prologue
Whispers of the Seeker
I. PART ONE
Chapter 1
A Child Born in Shadow
Chapter 2
Elandra’s Flight
A Life in Hiding
Chapter 3
The Farmer’s Hearth
Chapter 4
Dreams in the Fog
The Decision
Chapter 5
The Edge of the Map
Chapter 6
A Power Unveiled
Chapter 7
Of Wounds and Wonders
Chapter 8
The Watchers in the Dark
Chapter 9
Truth in the Fire
Chapter 10
The Path He Fears
II. PART TWO
Chapter 11
The Gathering Storm
Chapter 12
The Blood Banner
Chapter 13
The Girl in the Garden
Chapter 14
The Prophetess of Dawn
Chapter 15
Eyes That See the Future
Chapter 16
A Gift That Heals
Chapter 17
Love, and the Lie He Told
Chapter 18
The Fire Consumes Home
Chapter 19
The Last Goodbye
Chapter 20
He Who Must Rise
III. PART THREE
Chapter 21
Into Death Valley
Chapter 22
The Spirits Beneath the Sand
Chapter 23
Echoes of the Seeker
Chapter 24
A Blade of Golden Flame
Chapter 25
Burned but Unbroken
Chapter 26
A Kingdom of Ash and Chains
Chapter 27
The Silent Gate
Chapter 28
Into the Lion’s Maw
IV. PART FOUR
Chapter 29
Shadows of the Throne
Chapter 30
The Heir and the Tyrant
Chapter 31
The Last Duel
Chapter 32
Fall of the Dark Flame
Chapter 33
The Crown That He Refused
Chapter 34
The Wedding of Light
Chapter 35
The Healer King
Epilogue
The Light That Remained
Afterword
The Ballad of the Healer King
Prologue
Whispers of the Seeker
“When fire is worshipped more than life,
And kings wear shadow for a crown,
A child shall rise with light in his blood,
To heal what power has broken down.”
—The Last Fragment of the Light Keepers’ Prophecy
The kingdom of Darethmoor had long since forgotten what peace felt like.
Once, it was a land of flowering fields and starlit towers, where magic flowed like riverwater—clear, pure, and full of purpose. The gifted were few, but their power was sacred. Healers walked among the wounded. Singers stirred the wind. Farmers whispered blessings into the soil. Magic did not rule the people. It served them.
But peace is a delicate flame, and greed is wind enough to snuff it out.
It began with a king named Malrec. Once a man of wisdom and promise, he became consumed by the forbidden arts—those buried by the Ancients, locked away for the danger they posed to mortal hearts. He learned to bleed magic from pain. To bind spirits with suffering. He called it strength—and many believed him.
Darkness spread, not like a storm, but like a slow, creeping rot. One by one, the Light Keepers disappeared—betrayed, hunted, or broken under flame. Magic was no longer a blessing. It became a weapon, forged in the hands of the powerful to enslave the weak.
And so the people bowed their heads, not in reverence, but in fear.
From this world of fire and shadow came a love that was never meant to be.
Prince Vayren, the king’s only son, had been raised in the black halls of power, his heart carved in the image of his father’s will. He commanded soldiers. He wielded magic to suppress rebellion. He knew what loyalty cost.
But even the most disciplined heart may stumble when it meets the right soul.
In the quiet of a forgotten province, he met Elandra—a healer’s daughter with river eyes and fire in her spirit. Their love was swift, defiant, and hidden in silence. It broke every rule. Yet for a time, it was enough.
Until Elandra discovered she was with child.
And the dreams began.
Visions came to her in the hours between dusk and dawn: a boy cloaked in light, standing upon a ruined throne, a golden sword in his hand and flames at his feet. He bore the king’s eyes, but not his heart. And in her dream, all of Darethmoor bowed—not in fear, but in peace.
The prophecy returned with her child.
Elandra tried to stay hidden, but the wind carries truth faster than whispers. The king learned of the child. Of the dreams. Of the threat to his reign.
So she ran.
On a moonless night, Elandra slipped past the palace’s outer guard and vanished into the wild. She carried only a cloak, a scrap of bread, and the infant wrapped close to her chest. The boy’s breath was soft against her skin, but his fate was written in thunder.
For years, no one heard of her again.
Some said she died in the mountains. Others claimed her child was a myth. But there were still those—hidden prophets, broken mages, and quiet rebels—who whispered another story: that the Seeker lived. That he was growing in secret. That he would return not with war in his hands, but with healing.
That one day, he would face the king who had burned the world… and undo the darkness from within.
Now, the time of hiding has passed.
The boy, no longer a child, walks the edge of two destinies.
His blood ties him to a tyrant.
His soul belongs to the light.
And his heart… beats for a people he has not yet met.
“The flame that heals shall rise from ashes,
And the crown of mercy shall rest upon the head of the one who bled for all.”*
I
Part One
The Hidden Flame
Chapter 1
A Child Born in Shadow
Darethmoor was a kingdom bound in chains made of silence.
In the days of King Malrec’s reign, even the wind seemed cautious, as if afraid to disturb the throne. Magic once known for healing and wonder had been twisted—corrupted into a weapon of obedience. Sorcerers were no longer scholars; they were enforcers. Priests no longer prayed; they listened for dissent. And the Light Keepers—the last defenders of sacred magic—were burned or vanished, one by one.
No one spoke the prophecy aloud anymore.
But it lingered, like a splinter in the soul of the realm.
A child shall rise, born of light and royal blood,
Who shall undo the dark and heal the broken land…
King Malrec had heard it in his youth. He dismissed it then. But after his rise to power, after the Light Keepers began to fall, he ordered all records of it erased.
But a prophecy is not a scroll to be burned.
It is a seed. And it had already been sown.
Elandra never meant to fall in love with a prince.
She was a healer’s apprentice from the river village of Lirenvale—a girl of quiet strength, raised among herbs and songs of the old ways. Her mother had once served the Light Keepers in secret, and though the order had fallen, she passed on what knowledge she dared.
One spring, during a plague outbreak near the eastern borders, Prince Vayren was sent to oversee the quarantine.
The prince was everything the rumors promised: strong, cold-eyed, a commander bred for battle. But there were cracks in his armor. In the evenings, when the soldiers drank and the sick groaned in their tents, Vayren would walk the riverside alone, as if haunted by something he could never kill.
It was there, under the weeping trees and beside the wounded river, that he met her.
She tended to the dying with bare hands and no fear. He watched her for three days before speaking.
“You’re not afraid of me,” he said.
“Should I be?” she asked.
“Most people are.”
“Maybe you need different people.”
They spoke each night after that. First of healing. Then of poetry. Then of the truth he could not speak in court—that he did not believe his father’s rule was just. That he had seen villages turned to ash by sorcerers who called it “purification.” That he feared what he was becoming.
Elandra never tried to change him. She only listened. And in her silence, he found peace.
Their love grew in secret. Letters passed. Visits stolen. And finally, a single night beneath the moon, when they chose to be more than secret.
When Elandra discovered she was with child, she said nothing—not at first.
But dreams came again. Old dreams. Visions her mother had warned her about. A child wrapped in light. A kingdom in flames. A sword of golden fire. The prophecy her people had died to protect.
She told Vayren. He was stunned—afraid—but not of her.
“My father will see this as treason,” he said.
“He will see it as truth,” she whispered. “And that’s what he fears most.”
Word began to spread, despite their caution. The palace scryers whispered of a woman with royal blood tangled in prophecy. The king began summoning his informants. Old records were pulled from vaults. Names once forgotten were remembered.
Then came the order: “Bring me the healer from Lirenvale.”
Vayren begged his father for mercy. He told him the rumors were false. He swore there was no child.
King Malrec’s answer was a slow, cruel smile.
“I ruled long before you loved, boy. And I will rule long after. If she bears a child of your blood, and he carries the mark of the prophecy… I will cut it from her myself.”
Vayren returned to Elandra with blood on his hands and grief in his eyes.
“You have to leave,” he told her. “Tonight. Don’t wait for me. Don’t tell me where you go.”
“You would never see him,” she said, resting her hand on her swollen belly.
“Better a son I never see… than a grave I have to mourn.”
He gave her a token—a silver ring etched with the royal crest, hidden inside a locket. “Show this to anyone loyal to me. It’s all I can give you now.”
With the help of a few trusted allies, Elandra disappeared. Disguised as a trader’s widow, she vanished into the night, taking nothing but the clothes on her back and the fire in her heart.
She found refuge in the old northern forests, in a half-burned cottage watched over by a solitary farmer named Thalen, a former soldier who had fought in the wars Malrec started and lost everything to them. He took her in, without question.
And there, in the dead of winter, by the light of a single candle and her own quiet breath, Kaelen was born.
No scream. No cry. Just light. A warmth in the air.
As if the stars themselves had paused to watch.
The child was born in shadow, but carried a flame untouched by fear.
The king’s hunters searched for years, but never found him.
And deep in the forgotten places of the world, the Seeker grew—
not as a prince, but as a promise.
Chapter 2
Elandra’s Flight
Snow had begun to fall.
Not the soft kind that danced over rooftops and whispered through trees. This snow came in bitter sheets, driven by a wind that howled like a wolf through the stone teeth of the northern cliffs. Elandra tightened the cloak around her shoulders and pulled the infant closer to her chest, shielding him from the cold and from eyes that might see too much.
Kaelen didn’t cry.
He never cried.
Even now, nestled beneath wool and linen, his breath was steady and silent. Strange for a newborn—unnatural, some might say. But Elandra knew better. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t weak. He was watching. Even before he could open his eyes fully, he felt the world pressing in.
They had left the burned chapel just before dawn. The midwife, old Mira, had refused to take coin for her work.
“You bring a Seeker into the world,” Mira had whispered, brushing blood from Elandra’s brow. “That’s worth more than gold. But run, girl. Run fast. The king will send his eyes.”
Their first days were hard.
They traveled by night, avoiding roads and villages, moving through frost-covered forest paths and sleeping beneath thick roots. Elandra lived on roots, berries, and stolen bread. She had learned enough healing to hide fever and treat infection, but not enough to stop the fear.
She felt it watching her.
Not beasts. Not men.
But something deeper. The magic Malrec had twisted centuries ago still lived in the land—Watcher-spirits, bound to root and shadow, loyal to the crown. They were drawn to Kaelen’s presence. Sometimes, when she walked too close to a forgotten ruin or sacred stone, the air would turn still, and Kaelen would stare into the mist, as if something was staring back.
One night, by a frozen riverbank, she met a stranger.
He wore a traveler’s cloak, heavy with frost, and carried a sword far too fine for a woodsman. His eyes were not cruel, but cautious.
“You shouldn’t be out here with a child,” he said.
“And you shouldn’t be asking questions,” she replied, her hand slipping toward the knife hidden at her hip.
He raised his hands. “Easy, girl. I’m no loyalist. I fought in the Third Campaign. Lost two brothers to Malrec’s fire.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then you know what happens to those who speak against the crown.”
He stepped closer and knelt beside the child. “And I know what a Seeker’s aura feels like.” He placed a hand just above Kaelen’s sleeping form. “It’s like warmth in the middle of winter. Like truth you can’t deny.”
She froze.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Name’s Thalen. I’ve been waiting for something worth fighting for again. If you’re who I think you are, girl… you and that child just gave me purpose.”
Thalen took them in.
His farm was little more than an old hunting lodge pressed into the cliffs above the pinewood basin—forgotten, half-buried, and invisible from the main roads. But it was safe. For the first time in weeks, Elandra lit a fire.
Kaelen opened his eyes for the first time that night. And she wept.
Meanwhile, in the obsidian halls of Darethmoor, King Malrec was already moving.
“I want every northern pass sealed,” he told his captains. “Every ferry. Every road. I don’t care if the rivers freeze over—find the child.”
Prince Vayren stood silent at his father’s side, guilt carved deep into the lines of his face.
“What if he’s not the one, Father?” he said quietly.
Malrec looked at him with those hard, ember eyes. “All of them could be the one. And I will not lose my throne to dreams.”
A Life in Hiding
The years that followed were quiet, but never easy.
Elandra stayed with Thalen, hiding not only from soldiers, but from the burden of the prophecy. They became a family—not by blood, but by bond. Thalen taught Kaelen how to ride, how to hunt, how to survive. Elandra taught him herbs, history, and healing. The boy learned quickly. His powers stirred slowly—he could sense pain in others, feel when storms were coming, and sometimes know what a person would say before they spoke.
Elandra watched him grow with wonder and dread.
“He’ll have to leave one day,” she said to Thalen by the fire, when Kaelen was still just a boy. “They’ll find us eventually.”
“Let that day come,” Thalen said, tightening his grip on his axe. “We’ll make them regret it.”
But Elandra knew the truth.
The day would come—not because fate was cruel, but because Kaelen was never meant to be hidden forever. A storm had been waiting since before he was born. And every day they delayed, the sky darkened.
Still, for a little while longer, they had peace.
A family.
A fire.
And the quiet hope that maybe—just maybe—the prophecy could wait.
But prophecies do not sleep.
They wait.
And when they wake, they burn.
Chapter 3
The Farmer’s Hearth
The old cottage crouched like a slumbering bear at the edge of the pinewoods, its stone walls softened by moss and memory. Smoke rose steadily from the crooked chimney, winding through the morning mist like a prayer to forgotten gods. Inside, firelight flickered off rough-hewn beams, casting gold on the faces of the boy, the healer, and the man who had come to love them both.
