From The Embers Novels & Stories

The night went still again. Ember stood there for a long moment,cold and shaking, feeling all the rises from her skin, she pressed her hand against the window glass. Recalling the words again “He’s not gone”. The words echoed in her head over and over until her pulse began to hit painfully against her ribs. When she finally lay herself down, she didn’t realize she was crying until she tasted salt from her middle lips. Darius’s POV

Prologue II: Pyre, 3113 Pyre Av 5, 3113 Stephan Caliphus, King Everything was on fire the night he finished the book in the back room of a borrowed house. He laid his glasses down on the desk in front of him and rubbed his tired eyes. The crackling of flames could be heard as the city burned all around them. The blood curdling screams of the men in the streets where they died was enough to make the blood of the fiercest warrior run cold, but he was a man of empathy and it hurt him more than it did the others.

Ember's POV When I woke, the world was wet stone and cold iron. My arms were stretched above my head, chains biting into my wrists until my skin burned. The air shimmered faint blue, alive with whispers that hummed against my bones. Every breath I took tasted like metal and ash. My disguise was gone....no bandages, no cloak, no voice to hide behind. Just me. Ember. And the truth I’d spent months burying.

And I see it. A ring of trees scorched black at the base, yet alive. In the center, glowing like an ember from the bones of the earth, is the Heartwood Emberroot. Blood-red tendrils curl around stone. Fire dances faintly through its veins. I step forward. “Wait,” Inferno warns. “He’s coming.”

The engine room was a roaring furnace beneath our feet, and the secondary fuel tanks were right behind those bulkheads. We breached the upper deck doorway and tumbled out into the freezing night air. The contrast was shocking. The sea wind hit us with biting force, but it offered no relief, the stern of the Vance Empress was already engulfed in a towering inferno. Bright, violent orange flames licked sixty feet into the black night sky over the open coastal waters of Miami, casting long, horrific, dancing shadows across the churning black waves. Thick columns of black smoke billowed upward, swallowing the stars, turning the luxury vessel into a burning torch in the middle of the dark ocean.

“We fight.” In the Shadows Ignis stood in the dark. Watching through fire. He had seen everything. Lycan’s death. Zuri’s grief. Daisy’s pain. He smiled. “Let them gather. Let them burn with hope.” He turned to the white-haired girl—**Ember**. “Soon,” he said. “The child will come to me. And when she does… she will burn this world to ash.” Rosa’s POV They told me Lycan was gone.

“I’ve already been broken. What’s left now is the part that learned how to survive the fire.” Vera said nothing at first. She only watched Emereah’s fingers as the ember flickered and pulsed, alive with something ancient. The fire didn’t consume her. It clung to her like breath. “You speak like the flame is your ally,” Vera said softly, stepping forward. “But even fire leaves scars.” Emereah’s eyes didn’t move from the horizon. “I’ve bled for every scar. And I’ve named them.” “Named them?” Emereah nodded once. “My father. My mother. The warriors of Crescent Silver Moon Fang. The girls they slaughtered. The mates they silenced. I carry them all.”

“You’ve been full of promises, Carson Wills. Now it’s time to prove them.” He smiled, capturing her lips in a slow, deliberate kiss, survival, victory, and unshakable passion flowing between them. Their bodies pressed together, heat and longing mingling, a testament that love had endured even the fire. The ember pulsed faintly beside them, its amber glow reflecting the bond they shared. Justina traced its smooth surface, drawing strength from its warmth. “This ember,” she murmured, “it’s not just fire… it’s hope. And tomorrow, we build from that hope. Together.”

Ember’s words crashed into him harder than any blow could. “You’re lying,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. Ember let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Oh, how I wish I were.” She took a step closer, her eyes burning with a venom that had been festering for years. “I am the product of one of our father's many mistakes. My mother was one of his mistresses—a tool for him to use and discard like nothing.” Ember took a deep breath as memories resurfaced. She had gone through a lot, and bringing that memory back hurts her more than she lets on.

3F: anyone else’s balcony trying to detach itself 5A: power flickering on west side 2D (Luca): if we die can I have Ember’s boots Ember: absolutely not Ghost: Luca I will haunt you first She huffed a quiet laugh, but then the building shuddered—deep, structural, wrong. Outside, something cracked, not thunder but closer, more immediate. “Ghost,” she said quietly, her voice laced with unease. “I heard it,” he replied instantly, his tone alert. The lights cut out, emergency strips flickering on in their place, dust sifting from the ceiling like fine snow. Another violent sound tore through the building—wood splitting, metal screaming in protest. “Ember,” Ghost snapped urgently. “Move—”