A Vow Of Embers Novels & Stories

She moaned in agony, writhing as if her insides were on fire. The healers hovered, their faces pale. "Poison," one of them stammered. "Voidroot variant, laced with wolfsbane essence. She's... she's begging for death.” Ember's eyes—those green eyes that once looked at me with love—found mine through the haze. Tears streamed down her face. "Kill me," she rasped, her voice broken. "Please... Azai... just end it. I can't—I can't—" Why should I feel sorry for her?

The soil remembers its blood. She lifted a hand and the world around them twisted— Fire. Screams. The mountain cracking like bone under pressure. Wolves tearing into wolves. Humans fleeing the forest. And the sky above—bleeding silver light, torn by shadow. In the center of it all, Ember saw herself. Her child. Asher. Julian. Vivianne. Even Aiden. All caught in a storm they couldn’t stop. **EMBER (shaken)** Tell me how to stop it.

Varion intoned. The Ember Wolf said nothing. The sigils pulsed red. “By the packs you have betrayed, do you submit to their judgment?” Still silence. The wind howled. The flames trembled. “By the Goddess who bore your wolf, do you claim her light?” The Ember Wolf’s eyes burned brighter. He raised his head. “I am the light she denied,” he spat. “I am the flame that will burn away her weakness.” The wind died instantly. The flames vanished.

“The ones before. The ones yet to come. They need a vow.” “A vow?” Link echoed. “The Ember Oath,” Logan said. “We must speak it again. Together. So the blood remembers.” And then... he began to chant. The words weren’t English. They weren’t even Old Tongue. They were beyond language—pure power, rhythm and meaning embedded in fire and soul. But somehow, we understood. Our mouths moved with his. The earth answered. “We are flameborn, forged in fire and fang. By ash we rise, by blood we bind.

Rowan's POV. Everywhere was dark, hazy, and heavy with a suffocating sense of dread. I could see her, standing at the edge of the room, her back to me, the scent of lavender still clinging to the air. Ember. She was leaving again. I could feel it in my bones, in the marrow of my soul. My throat tightened, panic rising as if it were a living thing inside me. "Ember, don’t go!" My voice sounded hoarse, desperate, almost foreign to my ears. I staggered toward her, my legs weak and my body heavy as if weighed down by the fever that had gripped me for days; the Feral Fever.

He pulled out an engagement ring and waved it in front of Emilia declaring with dominance: "Emilia, I'm taking you as my wife. I want to be with you in life and death for the rest of my life."

When they arrived, the Heartfire flared softly, recognizing the rhythm in their steps. Arianne smiled. “You are the Children of Dawn,” she said. “Not because you were born in the light, but because you chose to walk out of the dark.” --- The Lesson of the Ember She led them to the base of the Heartfire, where its glow pooled like liquid gold on the stone. “Each of you holds an ember,” she said. “It is small, fragile, and eternal.” The apprentices knelt, cupping their lights between trembling hands. Arianne continued:

she whispered, her voice small and scared. Lucas Antonio,a man in his late thirties, a name whispered in boardrooms with reverence, a titan of industry, knelt before the small, broken child. The man who commanded vast energy empires, whose decisions swayed markets, found himself humbled by the profound grief etched on Ava's face. He recognized the hollowness in her eyes, a mirror of the despair he had once known. He gently lifted her into his arms. Her small body trembling against his.

“Ah, Dante. Always so quick to fight. But what if I told you… this isn’t your war anymore?” He lifted a detonator. And pressed the trigger. The chapel ceiling split with a deafening crack. Flames licked the edge of the altar. The escape tunnel collapsed. The only exit sealed. And the First War of Blood and Vows had officially begun.

I ask him warily because I fear his efforts would have been futile. "Let's head back. I will explain later. No one will be able to see that. You only saw it because you are part of me. That is called the Flame Of Atonement. No one evil will be able to stand its scorching heat. Let us go back to the villa. Our mate needs us." Emberwing responds and my heart is at ease. I know Athena needs me and I am more than willing to spend the few remaining hours with her before she heads to work.