Embers And Ashes Novels & Stories

Rain pounded the cemetery, washing the gravel paths into muddy rivers. Evelyn Harlow hunched under her useless black umbrella, teeth chattering as the last shovelfuls of dirt landed on her mother’s casket. The preacher had finished ages ago. Eve just couldn’t make herself walk away. Not yet. Now it was just her. Nobody left.

He let his mind drift through old memories. The next day, dressed in nothing but a white dress shirt and black slacks, Cole was finally discovered by the cemetery's security staff. His face had gone dark from the cold, but there was a faint smile at the corner of his lips. Snow drifted down from the sky in thin, scattered flakes. Cole had frozen to death. He'd died at the side of the grave marked, "In loving memory of Isabel Cavendish, my beloved wife."

Soon enough, thick, billowing smoke obscured her face from view. Several bystanders ran up to help, but the intense heat pushed them back. In the end, the car was consumed by flames in front of everyone, leaving behind only a blackened shell. Elise was gone, and the ashes were all that remained of her. When word reached Logan’s ears, he sat in a dimly lit room in long silence. Eventually, he let out a bitter, self-mocking chuckle, but his eyes didn’t hold joy. No matter what became of Elise, Coral wasn’t coming back.

It moved farther and farther from the cemetery on the hillside, and farther away from all the love and hatred buried beneath Sicily's soil. Daisy leaned against Caleb's shoulder and looked out the window. The hillsides were covered in blooming irises. The warm breeze never felt better. Her new life had only just begun.

The words settled heavily in the space between them, not because they were dramatic, but because they were ordinary in the way they expressed something profoundly irreversible. Aisha studied him for a moment longer before speaking again. “And the marigolds?” she asked. At that, something subtle changed in his expression, not emotional disruption, but recognition. “She used to bring them when the wards were too quiet,” he said, as though recalling something that had always been part of his internal landscape. “She said they made the air feel less empty.” Aisha felt her attention sharpen slightly, because the detail matched too precisely with fragments she had seen in archived notes, and yet h

Then, standing with her hands over the ashes, she starts her chant. - Cande cineres Maiorum meorum, qui laesi mortui sunt, surge et fac angelum dubitare. fac Angelum nuntiare avunculo iter per hebdomadam morari. (Latin translation - White ashes of my ancestors, who died wronged, rise and make Angel doubt. Make Angel tell his uncle to delay the trip for a week.) The ashes slowly turn into steam, which rises and passes under the door. Traveling the distance between the rooms, it enters under the door, where Angel rests from the new attempt on his life.

Dead, nameless men. “Turn to your left.” It was a repeat of his last tour, flashing through his mind. Dead friends, dead brothers. Bodies left in the sand. The whir of a helicopter’s blades as they were flown back to base, bruised, bloody, and sometimes broken. “You can wash your hands over there,” Mike said. Asher could feel the darkness clouding his mind, creeping along his spine, settling in his soul. He closed his eyes as he washed the ink from his fingers. He needed to breathe.

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…

I received a letter written in blood. "Soul-bound, 'til death do us part. I kept my promise. —Kaelen" A few drops of dried, brown blood stained the paper. Marcus stood beside me. "Should I take care of this?" he asked gently. I shook my head and placed the letter in a drawer. I heard that on the night of the full moon, he severed his connection to the Moon Goddess, letting his wolf spirit dissipate into the night sky. It is the most sacred, and most painful, way for a werewolf to die.

I'll make it up to you when I get back. I stared at the messages on the screen, then tapped into a livestream pushed to my feed. In the livestream, Cameron was accompanying Lucy as she picked out a dress for a charity gala. His eyes followed her every move. I didn't reply. Instead, I quietly deleted every trace of him from my contacts. One final buzz came through. It was a confirmation text. [Your ID cancellation was successful.] Suddenly, chaos broke into the livestream. Cameron's assistant, Brendan Cole, burst into the frame, gasping for breath, his face pale as ash. He held a document tightly in his hands as he ran up to Cameron.