From Autumn To Ashes The Fiction We Live Novels & Stories

I shrugged nonchalantly. “An abortion, of course.” Williams started to tear up when he heard me speak so lightly about it. He struggled to control his emotions and tried really hard to remain calm. Even so, there was a hint of sadness in his voice when he spoke. “Christelle, why did you abort our child?” At that moment, I looked at him as if he were a fool. “Why? Williams, you’re a firefighter. Don’t you know how toxic smoke is?

In July. Autumn stood in the library, her breath fogging in front of her. Books along the shelves groaned under a thin sheet of ice. Even the fire in the hearth had guttered into pale embers, too weak to warm the room. She stared down at the Book on the table. Its pages no longer glowed. The once-living ink had turned black. Dead. “She’s here,” Autumn whispered. Tristan stepped beside her. The soulbond flickered between them—erratic, unstable, pulsing like a dying star. He touched her arm, but his eyes were already on the window, sensing what she sensed.

"Please, Ryan, don't do this. He's your son! Please, don't take this from me!" But Ryan's mind was filled with anger and betrayal. He opened the urn and began to pour the ashes onto the ground. "No!" Sophia wailed, her cries echoing through the cemetery. She lunged forward, her hands clawing at the ashes as they scattered. The gray powder clung to her hair and skin, mixing with her tears as she wept uncontrollably. She pressed her head to the ground, her body trembling with sorrow. "My baby," she sobbed, her voice barely audible. "I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry…"

I woke before the sun. Not that much of it is left these days. The clouds hung heavy, thick with ash and smoke, like even the sky feared what was coming. Hail was awake, too. He didn’t speak or move, but I felt him watching me. Neither of us dared to talk about what had happened, not yet. It was too fragile, too complicated. I didn’t even know what to call it. Desire? Comfort? Something older than both? All I knew was that the way he looked at me still lingered in my bones.

The retreat of the Sun-Eaters had left behind a world that felt fundamentally broken. As I stood on the ramparts, leaning heavily into Silas’s warmth, I looked out over the valley. The snow, once a pristine and sparkling white, was gone. In its place was a thick, suffocating layer of pale grey ash—the remains of the ancient forest and the pulverized spirits of the Council’s ritual. It looked like a graveyard of a world that had forgotten how to breathe.

Dark, freezing mist poured outward—heavy, ancient, and oppressive. Beyond the veil, the ruins of Solaryn stretched endlessly under a crimson sky: broken towers, collapsed palaces, burning rivers of dark liquid, and black ash falling like snow. The Kingdom of Ashes was waiting, watching, and hungry. Killian extended his hand toward Seraphina. She looked at his palm, then up into his golden eyes. For a long, heavy moment, she hesitated. Then, she took it. Not as mates, and not as lovers—not yet. But as partners. As parents. As two deeply broken people trying to find their way back to one another.

Around midnight she reached the section describing Meher's gradual decline. The whispers. The forest. The growing suspicion. The fear. A knot formed in her stomach. She kept reading. Then came the murder. The rain. The clearing. Meher's final words. I have only loved you. Aisha closed the notebook abruptly. The room felt too warm. For several moments she simply sat there staring at nothing. The tragedy struck harder than she expected. Not because it was real. Because it wasn't. Somehow that made it worse. A fictional murder should not have felt devastating.