Novels by Jasmine Sheng

Rachel’s POVThe house was silent when I stepped inside. Only the faint hum of the refrigerator broke through the quiet, and the soft click of Amber’s bedroom door closing upstairs.I set my keys down on the counter and leaned against it for a moment, feeling the weight of the day pressing down on me. My chest still hurt from the look on her face earlier, the way embarrassment had replaced the warmth that used to greet me.I climbed the stairs slowly, pausing outside her room. “Amber, honey?” I said softly, knocking on the door.No answer.“Sweetheart, can we talk?”Her voice came muffled through the wood. “Go away.”I swallowed hard. “Amber, please. I know today was hard, but—”The door cracked open just enough for her small, tear-streaked face to appear. Her eyes were red and puffy, her lips trembling.“Why can’t you just be like other moms?” she burst out. “Dad never comes home because of you. Because you’re fat!”The words hit like a slap. My heart stuttered.“Amber—”“You embarra

Rachel’s POVI sat in the car for a long moment after closing the door, hands gripping the steering wheel, the echo of his words still burning in my chest.Our five-year agreement will expire.A contract. That was all I’d ever been to him.I forced myself to inhale deeply, then again, until the air no longer caught painfully in my throat. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them away. I had cried enough for one day.When I caught my reflection in the rear-view mirror, my eyes were red-rimmed, lashes clumped together. My cheeks were blotchy, my hair a tangled mess. I barely looked like myself.“Pull it together,” I whispered. “Amber’s waiting.”I started the engine and adjusted the mirror. As I turned my head, something outside the passenger window caught my eye.A man stood by the curb, hunched beneath the flickering streetlight. His clothes were tattered, his shoulders bent, a scruffy beard shadowing most of his face. A small bag hung from his wrist, and when he tu

Adrian's POV“Where did you go just now?”Marissa’s voice floated toward me as soon as I stepped back into the suite.“Just breathing some fresh air,” I said.Her silk red dress slid off her shoulders like liquid. She let it fall without hesitation, without shame, as though the idea of modesty had never existed for her. The light from the chandelier caught the smooth line of her skin, revealing a body so thin it bordered on fragile. Her ribs were faintly visible beneath her pale complexion, the delicate curve of her waist almost sharp in its frailty.If I were being honest, I would say she needed to gain at least ten pounds just to look healthy again. Seeing her like that made something uneasy stir in me, a quiet guilt mixed with pity tha

Rachel's POVCold water rushed over my head, numbing my skin and silencing the ringing in my ears. The hotel’s staff shower was small and unremarkable, white tiles, humming fluorescent light, but it felt like the only place I could hide. I scrubbed at my arms until the faint scent of frosting was gone, yet the humiliation clung to me like a stain that would not wash out.When the water finally ran clear, I stood there for a moment, hands braced on the wall, my breath trembling.Today was terrible. No, beyond terrible.I towelled off quickly, slipped into the spare staff clothes one of my old colleagues had pressed into my hands, and stuffed my ruined dress into a plastic bag. My reflection in the fogged mirror was a stranger. My hair still damp, my eyes swollen from tears, and

I had been living as someone that was unneeded and unwanted for years because of my chubby figure, but the marriage with my billionaire husband and my adorable daughter tricked me into feeling like I was worth something, even though I was the wife that was hidden away. But the truth is, when I was kidnapped, my husband left me to die, burning in the fire.When I survived and came back as a beautiful, charming woman, he looked at me with full desire.Please don't marry him, I am better than him.He begged for me when I married another man, but it was ridiculous that he didn't even know who I truly was.This time, it was my turn to play the game.Chapter 1: The CallRachel's POV

Word of the frost spread faster than the wind.By the end of the week, the villagers whispered of it as a miracle. They said the fire had died because the mountains themselves had chosen to protect her. They said the Saint of the Mountains had spoken and the Light had fallen silent.Seraphina heard the whispers each time she walked through the courtyard, though no one dared say them aloud when she was near. She pretended not to notice. The snow had settled thick and bright across the valley, glimmering like glass beneath the pale sky. It was quiet now, too quiet, but for the first time in months, the quiet did not mean death.Lucien found her standing by the chapel well, her hand resting on the frozen rim. “The scouts brought back reports,” he said. “The fires are gone. The Church has pulled back for now.”Seraphina nodded. “Balance remembers mercy.”“They’re calling you something new.”“I don’t want to know.”Lucien stepped closer. “You should. The refugees who arrived this morning c

The news reached them with the dawn. The scouts stumbled through the monastery gates just as the first light touched the peaks. Their faces were streaked with soot and frost, their breath coming in ragged bursts. One collapsed immediately; the other fell to his knees, words tumbling out between gasps.“They’re burning the valleys. The Saint’s army… they’re calling it the March.”Lucien caught the man by the shoulders. “How far?”“Half a day south. Maybe less.” The scout swallowed hard. “They’re cleansing everything. Houses, crops, people who couldn’t run fast enough. They call it purification.”Seraphina appeared behind him, her cloak brushing against the snow. “Did you see who leads them?”“The priests,” the scout said. “And soldiers wearing white. They carry banners with her name.” His eyes lifted, wide and hollow. “They’re singing while it burns.”A heavy silence filled the courtyard. Even the wind seemed to hesitate. Seraphina’s gaze turned south, toward the faint haze of smoke ri

The days after the rescue passed in uneasy quiet.Snow continued to fall, though more gently now, soft flakes drifting through the cracks in the monastery roof. The fires burned longer, and for the first time since winter began, the scent of smoke no longer meant ruin. The villagers worked in silence, mending walls, patching cloaks, gathering wood from the forest edge. Every sound felt heavy but purposeful, like the slow heartbeat of something waking.Cale slept for two days straight. When he finally woke, the first thing he asked for was water, then light.Elias found him sitting near the chapel wall that afternoon, half-wrapped in blankets, staring at the frost lines that shimmered faintly along the floor. The brand on his wrist had faded to pale scar tissue, though the skin around it was still raw.“You were lucky,” Elias said, setting a bowl beside him. “The fever broke last night.”Cale’s voice was hoarse. “I don’t believe in luck.”“Then what kept you alive?”Cale looked up, eye

The storm had passed, but the cold remained.By morning, the sky was clear again, a dull blue stretching endlessly over the mountains. The snow in the courtyard glowed faintly beneath the light, untouched except for a single trail of footprints leading from the gate. Seraphina stood beside the chapel door, watching the horizon. The air smelled of smoke and iron.Lucien had not yet returned.He had left before dawn two days ago, taking three of the stronger villagers down the southern road to scout the nearest passes. The last message he sent, delivered by a raven that arrived at dusk, had been brief: Movement near the old border. Church banners sighted.Now the silence stretched too long.

The snow had not stopped in three days.It fell in slow, soundless sheets, blanketing the valley until even the paths that led to the monastery disappeared beneath it. Smoke rose from the small fires in the courtyard, their warmth doing little to hold back the cold. Inside, the air smelled faintly of herbs and melted wax. The survivors from the foothills had begun to settle into uneasy rhythm, mending cloaks, repairing walls, tending to one another in silence broken only by the hiss of boiling water.Elias had returned at dawn. He had been gone for nearly a week, sent with two of the older villagers to the lower slopes to guide more refugees through the mountain pass. He came back thinner, his cloak stiff with frost, his hands ink-stained from the notes he had kept along the way.Now he sat near the gate, scratching those notes into a clean journal by the firelight. His handwriting was precise despite the numbness in his fingers. He had begun recording everything: each new face, each

Dawn came quietly.The first light slipped through the cracks in the cloisters, spreading across the stone like a slow exhale. The air was sharp with cold; frost had formed along the edges of the sigils carved into the courtyard floor, tracing each curve and symbol in delicate silver lines. When Seraphina stepped into the light, the frost shimmered faintly, responding to her presence the way morning dew bends toward the sun.She drew her cloak tighter. Her breath curled white in the air.The monastery was still. Only the soft creak of wood and the rustle of snow breaking from the eaves disturbed the silence. It was hard to believe that the world below had changed, that the Church had crowned a Saint, that her sister now stood at the heart of the Light. Here, everything felt suspended, caught between peace and ruin.She walked slowly through the courtyard, her boots leaving faint prints across the frost. The sigils pulsed weakly beneath the ice, like veins under skin. She knelt beside