No Ashes In The Fire Novels & Stories

Waiting for the right moment before he decides to try and fight me, but I won't give him that satisfaction. "I'm more of a show than tell kinda girl." I say, and begin to walk to the door, heading to the exit. A thunderous clap erupts, and the back wall is covered in flames. The first of the many explosions we had planted had successfully gone off. I watch his gaze turn from me to the giant flames dancing behind him. He shifts forward, putting distance between him and the flames.

They exchanged glances, confusion written across their faces. “Dead how?” Asher asked, folding his arms. “I mean devoid of life. No sound, no scent of animals, nothing. The ground is blackened, and the trees are rotting from the inside out.” I shook my head, the image burned into my mind. “It felt… wrong.” Ansel frowned, rubbing his jaw. “That’s odd. We haven’t had any fires, and if it were a sickness in the plants, it wouldn’t spread that fast without us noticing.”

But the moment the screen lit up, my illusions cracked. “Power Couple of the Year: Jackson Jack and Delilah Tomson Stun at Hospital Gala.” “Love in the Ashes: Jackson and Delilah Stronger Than Ever.” “Amara Holt? A Shadow in the Glow of the City’s Power Couple.” The breath lodged in my throat. I scrolled faster, desperate, but each headline dug deeper into my skin. Not a single word about the fire. Not even one line about the victims, or the families destroyed, or the babies who never had a chance to live. My children were erased all over again, replaced by glossy photographs of Jackson and Delilah smiling like royalty.

“A long time ago.” Lucian stepped beside her. “Then lock it again.” She gazed at him, anguish in her eyes. “I’m not sure I can.” The lock squatted close to the separatist, regarding her like a proud professor. “You can, Ashra. But you won’t. Because the fire is in you now, too. And the world up above… it is cold. It is dying. The fire must return.” Kael shouted, “At what cost?! ”

And the dream began to collapse. Stone fractured. Fire curled upward. The bones of the sanctum groaned. Victor vanished in a torrent of ash. Emilia turned to Asher, her body trembling. He caught her. And the stronghold burned. The fire cracked like bone splitting, each roar from the collapsing beams echoing like war drums across the mountainside. Embers soared into the air like burning moths. Emilia stood still amid the smoke, her eyes not glowing—but hollow, rimmed in the ash of what she’d become. Ashes clung to her cheeks, mingling with blood, with sweat, with the ghost of everything she’d nearly lost.

The flames whispered against my ears, voices old and familiar, calling me by a name that was not mine. My breath caught, my body poised on the edge of surrender. This was more than a trial—it was a crucible, a reckoning. The shard thrummed in my chest, ready to either crown me or consume me. But as I raised my foot toward the circle of fire, one thought cut deeper than all the rest—when the flames closed in, would they honor Selena Cross… or awaken Ashara once and for all?

"To rising from the ashes." Natalie clinked her glass gently. "To whatever comes next." And beneath the velvet sky, with the city once again at her feet, Natalie Evans finally felt the fire inside her burn not with rage, but with purpose.

"Then... the person who was taking care of you these past few days… Was that not your girlfriend?" "No. We broke up a week ago." Ivy looked awkward, clearly unsure how to change the subject. Just then, my phone suddenly vibrated. Ivy let out a breath of relief and quickly helped me answer it. "Go ahead. Take the call." The moment the line connected, Grant’s furious shouting burst out. "Ash, find a time to come pack up your things and leave! Your hand is ruined. What use are you now? I'm officially notifying you that you are fired from the studio!"

God help her, she did. And love in a house built on ashes was the most dangerous fire of all.

So when a Necromancer terrorist group waged war against law-abiding citizens and started wreaking havoc, the Chicago became a shitshow and immediately converted to a worst kind, not even the local normie police could handle. Which meant the best counterattack came not from local human authorities but in the form of government-backed Awakens. “Where the fuck is our cover fire?” Knight Adamson gritted his teeth and raise his hand casting a shield but flinched when magic bullets started raining down at them. He glanced over at his second-in-command and communications and infiltration specialist Sergeant Rina Abello, as she dropped down beside him, magically enhanced AKR-75 assault rifle tightly