Flame Shadows Novels & Stories

We stopped at a small clearing ringed by blackened trees built a fire from the last dry wood we could scavenge low flames that barely pushed back the dark. Flame slept between us green light soft vines loosely curled around our wrists. She hadn’t woken since dusk, but every so often a vine would twitch reaching north then recoiling as if afraid. Kael sat close silver eyes reflecting firelight breath pluming white. “She felt it,” she said quietly. “The shadow.” I nodded hand resting on Flame’s back. “The vines shivered. Like they were scared for the first time.” Kael looked at me eyes dark, pupils blown.

The torches flared, burning blue. And the shadows moved.

"You don't get to wear his voice. You don't get to touch him." The flames burst out of me like a flood, spiraling around my arms, my chest, my back. They didn't feel like ribbons anymore. They felt like wings. Huge, burning, terrible wings. I slammed into the shadow. Light exploded through the cavern, so bright the stone looked like it was on fire. The water screamed as my flames hit it, steam and ash tearing upward in a whirlwind. The shadow staggered, its storm of faces shredding under the attack, black dissolving into sparks.

They were moving their arms elegantly, their head tilting. The shadow then stretched and roll at the wood that was now crackling in flames. The fire was dominated by its impenetrable darkness. Though its emblem continued to dance, it now adapted the intangible skin of the shadow. The smoke spread in the wind. It seemed to be calling the corpse that was now hovering above the stage, the fire growing even bigger as Lara’s body flew higher. Shiela, along with the other Wielders lined at the back of the drummers, humming a low rhythm as they looked up at the corpse of Lara.

Frost laced across the stone beneath her boots in thin, creeping fractures. The ancient trees groaned. Leaves nearest her curled inwards, darkening at the edges. The moonlight dimmed, swallowed by the glow of that impossible fire. It burned without consuming, without smoke and without mercy. Shadows leaned towards it, drawn and distorted, as the flame commanded even the absence of light. Riven did not step back. But his dagger hummed faintly at his side. The violet edge flared brighter, and for a heartbeat, the air itself felt thin, strained, like glass about to shatter.

Scared Maya hides behind a nearby shelf as the storekeeper gets the men out of the store. Maya, still feeling scared, stays in her hiding spot at the back of the store, her mother at the front calls for her since she is ready to leave. As Maya gets ready to come out of her hiding spot the back door of the store opens and a bottle of liquid with a flaming cloth in the neck. As it hits the ground the old building quickly goes up in flames starting from the back of the building trapping Maya.

Their voices braided, a howl and an incantation, tearing the air open. Their joined blood ignited. It was not fire as mortals knew it. It was creation flame—burning shadow, stitching broken laws of nature. The eclipse reached its darkest point, and in that blackness their light blazed. Wolves stilled, every howl choked into reverent silence. Witches lifted their heads, eyes clear as the Hollow’s whispers died. The phantom clawed once more, desperate. But the flame consumed it, sealing it in a circle of light. Shadow crumbled into dust, scattering across the sky like stars.

I reach deeper, indulging into forbidden spells and bringing them forth into existence. Fire bursts out of my palms, striking with different colours of flames, and I send it towards him. Doomsblood creates his own flame, swooshing with shadows and terrifying sounds of perished souls. The sound entails wailing souls and I can tell they want to swallow me whole. My fire against his shadows. As I burn brighter, he burns darker. My light brightens one half of the globe. His darkens the other half. He growls louder. I shrill tighter.

The cave carved into the heart of the Mountain of Darkness glowed faintly, lit by a fire that was no fire at all. Its flames burned pale blue, casting long, eerie shadows that writhed against the cavern walls like living things. The stone dripped with moisture, its veins glimmering faintly as though the mountain remembered the blood and battles buried in its bones. Freya sat close to the unnatural fire, its glow brushing warmth against her chilled skin, but no flame could quiet the storm inside her chest. The shadows seemed to lean closer, listening, watching as though the mountain itself hungered for her response to what had been revealed.

When I walked out of the doctor's office with my test results, the hospital's advertisement screen played the scene of Brandon proposing to me. Under a dazzling starry sky, deep blue fireworks lit up the night. He wore a white suit and kneeled in a rose garden, opening a box with a diamond ring inside. The scene was so beautiful that it looked like something straight out of a romance drama. I overheard some patients' family members chatting with a nurse. "I'm really so jealous of Ms. Pace. Meeting a man like Mr. Foster is the luck of eight lifetimes."