Ashes Of The Past Novels & Stories

The Last Root Never Dies Kieran's POV Ash fell like snow on the ruined keep as dawn clawed its way over the orchard ridge. The chapel had collapsed into a smoking hollow in the night, its stones cracked open by flame and blood and the weight of every oath whispered beneath its vaulted ceiling. The oil fires had done their work well. Calor's final dogs had choked in the vault stair, their bodies piled so deep that the orchard roots would drink for seasons to come.

The witches were gone, leaving nothing behind but charred patterns on the scorched earth. When the dust finally settled, the clearing was a graveyard of ash and smoke. Rhea stood in the center, her clothes in tatters, her skin glowing with a faint, dying silver light. She looked down at her hands, which were stained with the grey dust of the women she had just annihilated. POV: Ash Ryder Ash walked through the wreckage, his heart feeling like it had been shredded by a thousand silver blades. The smell of ozone and death was suffocating. He found Micah first, the boy miraculously alive but catatonic, staring at the space where the willow tree had been.

I hadn’t washed it yet. However, when I examined the collar, my fingers paused. The button was loose. The thread looked new, like it had been forcibly pulled. I crouched down and opened the shoe cabinet. My pair of hospital slippers sat neatly inside. The soles were clean. I remembered clearly that the last time I wore them, there had been a faint yellowish stain from disinfectant. Now, the soles were gray-white, as if someone had deliberately scrubbed them clean. My breathing tightened slightly, but my expression didn’t change.

Too natural. I paused, fork in my mouth. What if my memories were gradually erased and I only had those from up until 2013? How would I stop history from repeating itself? I pushed myself up and speed walked into my room. My eyes located the wall I had dedicated to sticky notes. Sticky notes laid on the table beside the wall, I walked over and tore one out, picking up a random pen. Taking a deep breath, I wrote down something that would definitely push me to not let history repeat itself.

Asher DravenHart Savannah’s oath still hung in the armory air, heavy as iron, spoken too bravely for a world that didn’t forgive ignorance. "Ashes to ashes. My word is my bond." I’d barely finished my warning when the wrongness slid back in. Not the clean cold of stone and steel. Not the sharp smell of oil and sharpened metal. Rot. A sour, ancient decay that didn’t belong anywhere near my walls. Nero rose under my ribs like a blade being drawn.

He wasn't moving either. He collapsed? 'What a waste.' Ace cursed.

The silence that followed the incineration of Tasha's final cache of secrets was the deepest peace I had known since the chaos began. The physical destruction of the files, the raw, unvarnished history of the Richard-Williamson feud was a definitive, purifying act. The past was now truly ashes. ​Damian stood beside me, watching the flames consume the paper, his hand resting on the small, silver rattle I carried in my pocket, the symbol of our hopeful future.

“Through fire, ashes, and every challenge, we face it together.” The first light of dawn fully bathed the city, illuminating a world that had once been ruled by fear and deception. Now, it reflected their victory, their love, and their promise to one another. Blood and ashes, fire and survival, they had endured it all. And standing there, intertwined, hearts aligned, they finally understood: the past had shaped them, but it would no longer define them. For the first time, Justina Ashes allowed herself to believe in the future, a future forged in love, passion, and unwavering trust.

Moonlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, stretching across the marble floor. I knelt on the balcony, applying a special herbal balm to the skin beneath my ribs—to the scars left by silver weapons thirteen years ago. They still ached. The scars always ached under the full moon, a cruel reminder of a past I fought to forget. "You're still using that balm." I didn't turn around. Kaelen's footsteps were loud on the cold marble. "I thought you'd forgotten that pain," he said. The anger was gone from his voice, replaced by something I couldn't quite place.

The crack blazed brighter than ever. For a long moment no one moved. The clearing was silent except for the hiss of the crack in the marker and the distant retreat of paws through underbrush. Mist drifted back in to fill the space where the pack had stood. Ava pulled herself upright against the stone. Her hands trembled. The silver glow had withdrawn into the token but left a faint shimmer under her skin, like moonlight trapped in her veins. She could still hear the echo of the whisper, softer now but insistent: Daughter of ash…