Burning Ashes Novels & Stories

The clone fought it, scratched and clawed and fought, its black-silver blood boiling where the flames touched it, the smell of burning wrongness filling every inch of air. But it wasn’t enough. “You are formidable,” Asher said, his voice quiet now, almost gentle. His grip didn’t loosen. “But you are not the real thing.” The body crumbled. The head followed. The fire ate what was left until even the ashes were gone, and Asher was standing in the centre of the wreckage, adjusting his cuffs.

She was gone. The weeks after The Burning are a blur. I wandered the ruins of Seattle, the sky perpetually covered in a blanket of ash, the fires never fully extinguished. The air was thick, toxic in some places. People died from simple things—smoke inhalation, dehydration, infection. The world had turned into a graveyard, and I was just another ghost haunting the ashes. I don’t know how I survived. Maybe because I didn’t care if I did.

At the wedding, Ewan Holland's assistant replaced the slideshow video with a clip of my sexual assault from five years ago. Amid the dead silence of the hall, Lilith Clayton pinned down my hands as I scrambled to unplug the flash drive. "Relax! I mean no harm. Just wanted to remind you how much Mr. Holland loves you. He doesn't mind your past, so don't ever chase cheap thrills or betray him." While I racked my brain trying to convince everyone it was an AI forgery, I frantically signaled Ewan to pull the drive. I thought he'd surely step up to save me. Yet he dragged the timeline bar forward and zoomed in on my face instead. I stopped wrestling, staring at him in disbelief. "What are yo

Wade's father died in the line of duty. At his funeral, Wade stood solemnly at the very front of the crowd. By the time I hurried back from out of town, there were only two spots left for the funeral procession. One was beside my husband of seven years, Wade, whom I had secretly married. The other was at the very back of the line. Naturally, I assumed the spot beside him had been left for me. But the moment I took a step forward, Wade walked right past me and nodded in the direction of my best friend standing behind me. "Helen, come here." The relatives around us began looking in our direction. Someone murmured, "Isn't that Wade's girlfriend? They look perfect together." Others began c

“Too bad, she’s not very smart.” With a snap, the shirt caught fire, and she tossed it in the trash can. On the other side of the room, Asher played with the toys Elder Miriam had given him, popping another one of her candies into his mouth without a care in the world. The other objects went into the burning trash can as well. I watched them burn until they turned to ashes. The dark energy dissipated, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “What about that?” I asked, pointing at the paper bag full of snacks. “You said i should be cautious so i only–”

Asher pressed his forehead to the mattress, silent tears staining the fabric. I just sat there, gripping our father’s lifeless hand, feeling something inside me fracture beyond repair. “ let us make a pyre for the king,” I said The guards worked quickly. Soon, the king's body was lying in the pyre. Ansel lifted the burning stake and burnt the body. The flames roared into the sky like they were hungry for more than just a body. The entire pack stood around the pyre, heads bowed in mourning, the flickering light casting long shadows on their solemn faces.

“What do we do?” Alessio looked down at Antonio’s body, then at the flames eating what was left of the clearing. “We burn it all. Every piece of him. Every trace.” He moved without hesitation. He picked up Antonio’s corpse like it weighed nothing and tossed it into the fire. The flames swallowed him greedily, flaring higher as if the forest itself was hungry for vengeance. The smell of burning flesh mixed with pine and smoke, thick and suffocating. Noa turned away, choking on guilt and ash, pressing his hands over his ears like that could block out the crackling sound.

Her eyes returned to the bodies. “We march for memory.” Behind her, the pact wolves stepped into the clearing—silent, solemn, deadly. One by one, they knelt. Asher knelt last. And then she turned her face to the sky, where the red moon hovered like a wound that refused to heal. She screamed again. But this time, it wasn’t mourning. It was a vow. “Burn him.” Later That Night The safehouse was torched. On her order. No body was left to be defiled again. No trace left for the rot to return.

Tears flowed freely down our cheeks, but we stood strong, honoring the lives of those who had fallen. As we finished our last rites, we watched as the flames engulfed the bodies of our fallen warriors. The heat from the pyre was intense, and we could feel the warmth on our faces. We watched in silence as the flames burned down to ash, consumed by the heat and power of the fire.

The female ashes are flown into the nearest river, praising the fluid and changeable mature of the female kind, while the male ashes are buried, praising their hard headed-ness and solidity. When a mated couple dies together, their bodies are burnt and their ashes deposited in the roots of an old tree, respecting the fact that even though they are dead they are still contributing to the betterment of mature. These different forms of final rites are done one by one, starting from the smallest age groups. I was thankful to the gods that no infant's death befell me. I didn't think after all I had been through in the last few days, that I was up for the funeral of a small child.