Final Space Ash Graven Novels & Stories

The pack who had captured them would never give them another chance, so only death waited if they too waited. But who wanted to die unhonorable? Not them. At least, never the Grays. "Then..." one of the older ones piqued. "You are our last hope, Lady Adeline." Adeline's scalp numbed. She couldn't even look at them. Her? Their last hope? If only she could laugh. She had failed to protect her brother, so why? Why would they still trust her? "Yes, Lady Adeline. Our last hope." "May you accept the hope we are placing on you, Lady Adeline."

They wondered how someone so young could build such an impressive reputation in antiquities and stone gambling, making them question if some people were truly born under lucky stars. "I lost… I lost again," Aspen laughed bitterly, her face deathly pale. The higher her confidence had soared before, the more crushing her defeat felt now. Typically, as the proud heiress of Bridgefields' Stevens family, Aspen would never admit defeat. However, Andrew's final move with the Blood Phoenix Cicada completely shattered her pride and confidence.

Just enough. “It wasn’t.” Silence fills the space. Heavy. Thick. Unavoidable. “And you think this is different?” I ask, my gaze snapping back to his, sharper now, more desperate than I want it to be. “Yes.” The certainty in his answer— It cracks something. Not fully. Not completely. But enough. “You don’t get it,” I say, my voice quieter now, tighter, like I’m holding something back with everything I have. “You don’t understand what it means to outlive everything. To lose everything. To be the only one left standing while everything else burns.”

They came back a few minutes later and we immediately portaled into our realm. We got to the realm; it was still in ruins from the last fight. “Where do you think Ashera's grave would be?” Bruno asked. “Somewhere in the woods,” I responded. We dashed towards the wood, and when we got to a particular spot that was probably Ashera's grave, we met a gaping hole in the ground. The coffin was now exposed, and the lid of the coffin was lifted, revealing the bones and garment of Ashera. The air was thick with the scent of decay and rot, and as we observed it, we noticed something strange.

Silence. “The one your people whispered about. The thing that was never supposed to be flesh. The anomaly wasn’t just some error in cosmic math. It was the failsafe.” Riven stepped forward, pointing back toward the throne room, back toward Mae. “She’s the fracture. The one your people’s lore said was born only if the extinction was real. If the collapse was complete.” His voice softened. “Ash, she’s the one reality made to fix it. Or end it.” Ashar’s fists trembled. His eyes were locked to the ground. His voice was a whisper now, raw. “Riven, don’t.”

“You weren’t authorized.” The man grins. “I never am.” I recognize him before he speaks again. Not by face—by weight. By the way the city pulls away from him like it doesn’t want to be noticed. “Name’s Ash,” he says. “Protagonist, depending who you ask.” Jonas’s voice goes flat. “You’re supposed to be off-grid.” “Yeah,” Ash replies. “So are ghosts.” He looks at me then. Really looks. No reverence. No calculation. Just recognition.

The ash burned my palm, but I didn't care. "You have to," he said, looking at me one last time with golden eyes that were slowly fading into gray. "For them. For us." The airships opened fire again. A rain of silver bullets chewed up the ground around us. Riven roared, his body exploding into a massive cloud of sentient ash. He flew into the sky, a dark storm hitting the first airship head-on. The metal groaned and snapped as the ash clogged its engines, sending the massive ship spiraling into the cliffs.

He looked a hundred feet tall, composed of flickering lines of violet code and stolen memories. "You think you are saving them? You are just hoarding the ash of the galaxy," the Shadow-Graves mocked, his hand reaching out to crush her mental image of the vault. "I have the System-Permissions you lack. I can turn this agony into order." "You'll turn it into a cage!" Elara shouted back, her mental form glowing with a defiant, silver light. In the ventilation shafts, Kazimir was experiencing a different kind of agony. The air was thick with Flash-Bang smoke. A group of Graves’ Breach-Specialists (soldiers trained in storming fortified positions) were crawling toward him, their goggles glowing r

Ash to ash. Now, only our future remained. To be continued...

I whispered, the words tasting like ash. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see their faces. I released the golden light. It was a soft, warm wave, a final mercy that felt like a betrayal. When the light faded and I opened my eyes, the space in front of me was empty. Five piles of fine white ash were all that remained of five heroes.