All Chapters of Born of Ash and Night : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Twenty-Five Years LaterThe first time I smelled blood that night, I knew the universe was about to be a bastard about it.Copper and salt slid through the market like a dirty secret, sharp enough to make my teeth ache. My pulse kicked. Hunger followed—fast, familiar, and deeply inconvenient.I kept walking anyway.Control isn’t a virtue. It’s a survival habit. Miss it once and you don’t get a second lesson.Maereth’s voice surfaced, annoying and eternal. You don’t live by pretending you’re harmless. You live by deciding when to be dangerous.The City Vireholt crawled around me—wet stone, smoke, sweat, fear. Vampires glided past like they owned the night. Wolves prowled in half-shifts they pretended were fashion choices. Humans did what they always did: kept their eyes down and prayed no one noticed their pulse.I had my hood up. I was behaving. The night hated that.The alley behind the apothecary stank of panic before I even saw the blood. Four people stood in a loose, ugly circle.

POV VaeliraDaylight and I have an understanding.It doesn’t like me.I tolerate it.I wake to it pressing against my skin—soft at first, like it’s testing boundaries. Pale light slips through the narrow window, catching dust in the air and turning it into something almost pretty. Almost.I groan and roll onto my back, squinting up at the ceiling. My skin hums faintly where the light touches it. Not burning. Not pain. Just… awareness. Like every nerve ending has been personally offended.Vampires crisp in sunlight. Wolves soak it up.I get stuck in the middle—warmth with teeth.I sit up slowly, joints complaining, and let the light crawl over my hands. My skin glows faintly, like there’s something alive just beneath it. Not enough to give me away. Enough to remind me I’m not built for easy categories.“Morning,” I mutter. “You’re looking rude.”The light does not apologize.Outside, Vireholt in daylight is a different kind of lie.The city pretends to be ordinary when the sun’s up—ma

His POV — Eight Years OldI was not supposed to be there.That alone made it irresistible.The Night Court tutors believed rules were bones—necessary, visible, unbreakable. My father believed rules were weapons. You learned how they worked so you could decide when to use them.So when the guards turned their backs and the sun hovered low enough not to kill me outright, I slipped beyond the permitted paths and into the dead hills where history went to rot.I told myself it was curiosity.It was not.It was hunger—not for blood, not yet, but for something I didn’t have a word for.I felt her before I saw her.The air tightened. The ground went oddly warm beneath my shoes, like it recognized something important and didn’t know whether to kneel or bite.Then she crashed into me.Hard.We both went down in a tangle of limbs and dust.I blinked up at the sky, then at her.She was all sharp edges and wildness—dark hair tangled like it had never obeyed an order in its life. Her skin caught th

POV VaeliraThe first time I realize my magic doesn’t just answer me—it listens for me—I'm twenty-one and ankle-deep in someone else’s bad decision.The alley smells like piss, iron, and regret. A half-shift wolf is pinned against a brick wall, claws half-out, eyes feral with pain and panic. Three men stand around him wearing the wrong kind of confidence—human, armed, and stupid enough to think silver makes them untouchable.It doesn’t.Not to me.“Back away,” I say, voice flat.They turn.One laughs. “Look at this. A girl with an attitude.”I sigh. “Original.”The wolf whimpers. That sound does something unpleasant to my chest.I feel the magic stir before I consciously reach for it—alert, offended. It recognizes injustice the way fire recognizes oxygen.That’s new.The men raise their guns.I don’t move.I don’t need to.The stone beneath their feet tightens.Just a suggestion.Mortar shifts. Brick compresses. The alley narrows by inches—enough to steal balance, enough to panic pr