Ruination Novels & Stories

In his hands, the dark counter cipher slate glowed with jagged violent violet runes that bled into the air like spilled ink. "You are too late, Golden Sovereign," Kaelen said. His voice didn't travel through the thin air of the chamber; it echoed directly through their helmet comms, carrying a calm chilling resonance that sounded entirely too close, as if he were whispering right past their ears. "The core corruption isn't a malfunction. It is the natural culmination of a cycle. Humanity has bled this planet dry. The Null Protocol is the only logical cure."

Once again her soul had been betrayed, that was the pain of betrayal. There was no worse damage than unrequited love. It was a disappointment to have been betrayed like that. Brandon was always there, watching the way they humiliated her, or at least that was what Crystal thought because the reality was that Brandon had just come in from making a very important call and was faced with that, just at the moment when he wanted to defend her, he was stopped by his mother. At a bad moment she turned to look at him and think something else very different from reality.

My muscles lock, the throbbing pain fading as I watch his finger dance over the trigger. “You’re wrong.” he looks at me. “Let’s say you did destroy all the rings, X. Let’s say you accomplished what you’ve set out to do. Do you honestly believe, for one second, it’ll stay that way? Ha! The second the dust settles, evil will already be rebuilding their empire, this time stronger and better than before.” he stares at me as if I'm delusional. “You'll never get rid of evil. Never.”

Barely. And he... Draven strolled away untouched, while we bled in the ashes of a place that was supposed to protect us. I hated that more than anything. The bruises would fade. The burns would scab and scar. But that laugh, his fucking laugh, would echo in my head for a long time. Victory wasn’t supposed to taste like copper and dirt and failure. But it did. It was silence, but not relief. It was the quiet you held before you screamed. It was absence. It was loss. It was ash in your lungs, smoke, and the smell of rotting magic.

His response was clipped. “Money rules the world,” I said and he looked out the window. He sat with his back too straight, his jaw tight and his eyes on the road. Did I scare him? I wanted to remind him of old times but instead I focused on the road. I kept on driving until we left the city behind us and what we could see now was graffiti, warehouses and the smell of rust and smoke. These were the kind of places Julian had probably only read about. I noticed how he moved uncomfortably on his seat.

Author’s note: Ruined(Eternal Monarch) contains details of the following subjects: Abuse, loss, trauma, suicide. Recovery from trauma and emotional relapse. If you are easily triggered by any of the following mentioned subjects. Do not read ahead for your mental health. Throughout the novel, there are a lot of strong languages. If you are not comfortable with all the foregoing, please do not enter. This is not a novel for the faint of heart. There are numerous triggers in the book.

Liam is already busy attacking the creatures, same as other witches. Lightning cracks from his hands before I even register the movement. It tears through the air with a violent snap, striking a null-born mid-phase and forcing it solid. The creature convulses, its body locking in place for a fraction of a second before Darian slams into it, claws ripping through its chest. It doesn’t bleed like we do. It dissolves. Like ash caught in a storm.

But curiosity had always been my fatal flaw. ‎ ‎My fingers trembled as I approached a shelf, drawn to a black folder with a photograph sticking out. I quickly turned on my flashlight to see a man in an expensive suit shaking hands with another figure whose face was circled in red ink. Notes scrawled in Daniel’s sharp handwriting covered the margins: “offshore accounts, money laundering, eliminate loose ends.” ‎ ‎The blood in my veins turned to ice water. ‎

His obsession deepened. I walked the line between ruin and surrender. How long before the secrets met? How long before the man I meant to destroy realized the ghost in his bed would be the one to bring his empire down? The game had never been more dangerous or more consuming.

“We know better. We know what happens when controls fall away. We know what happens when lines are crossed. We have seen empires crumble, lands burn, generations lost — all because someone thought they knew better than the wisdom of the past.” “You have seen ruin,” I said gently. “But you have mistaken the cause. Ruin never came from people being whole. Ruin came from people being broken. Ruin came from forcing things apart, cutting things off, hiding things away. You blame the union — but you have only ever known the separation. You have never once tried the other way.”