Slow Burn Glass Novels & Stories

I agree. “Let’s try again. Anala, if I’m not blind you have to anticipate that I’ll retaliate more forcefully. Be ready next time. Kenna, glass is just as deadly as sand. If you’re going to turn it from one to the other, be prepared to blast it with enough heat to melt it completely,” he tells her. “I wasn’t thinking about it turning to glass. Once it did, I had to put all my fire on it to start melting it.”

I staggered and Pelin caught my arm. “Follow my lead!,” I said. “We can do this!” I met her eyes and I knew she felt it. We drew the heat in, the pain, the exhaustion, the fear. We did not fight it. We let it shape us. The sand beneath us began to melt. “Sunburst Core!” we cried together. Light erupted from the ground, ember-golden and blinding. Heat surged outward in a roaring wave. The sand fused into glass beneath our feet. Leo screamed as the flames and shards hit him. Scorpio shrieked as the light burned through his armor.

She yanked it back, let the fire collapse into sparks that vanished into her skin. The Glass Twin dropped. With the bridge gone, he plummeted to his own branches. The crash sang out like a bell shattering. “The Tree!” yelled the Auditor from below. “June, look! The trunk!” Where the Glass Twin touched their tree, the silver bark turned glassy-blue. The disease spread—fast—turning living wood dead. “He’s eating us!” Dante yelled. The tips of his own fingers were starting to look transparent, shimmering with a glassy shine.

The heavy slug flattened against the invisible barrier, dropping harmlessly to the floor. "She's right," Vane cursed. "It's a kinetic shield. We can't break it." Saoirse slammed her palms against the glass, unleashing a torrent of violet fire. The flames washed over the barrier, but the Aether-glass simply absorbed the heat, shimmering with a blue counter-resonance. "Tristan," Saoirse gasped, pulling back, her hands smoking. "Two minutes. I can't melt it fast enough." Tristan stared at Vespera through the glass. The Grand Duchess was watching them with the detached interest of a scientist observing rats in a maze.

The wax inside the jar was completely melted into a pool of boiling hot liquid. *I can use that,* my assassin's mind whispered. *If I grab the heavy glass jar and throw the boiling wax right at his eyes, it will blind him. He will drop the dagger in pain. It will give me exactly three seconds to jump out of the window and disappear into the night.* I took a deep breath, tightening all the muscles in my arms and legs under the water. I slowly moved my right hand closer to the edge of the tub, my fingers ready to grab the hot glass.

With heat. It spread through me like a slow, rising tide. My fingertips tingled, and when I looked down, I saw tiny sparks dancing over them. Gold. Always gold. I clenched my fists and willed the sparks to stop. They faded, but the burn didn’t. It pulsed in my veins, thick and molten, like lava trying to force its way to the surface.

**Bella’s POV** The stem of the wine glass was cool between my fingers, slender and delicate, yet strong enough to hold the weight of the deep crimson liquid inside. I rolled it slowly between my fingertips, watching the way the firelight curled around the glass, bending in ribbons across the smooth surface. The wine caught the glow in ripples of blood-red and for a moment, I just admired it, mesmerized by its stillness before the swirl. Smiles were for warmth, for kindness, for fools who thought such things had a place in this world. What I felt was a private acknowledgment of victory, the kind you didn’t share but savored like the last bite of something expensive.

Three curved monitors flared to life, bathing the dark room in a sterile, electric blue glow. Global market graphs flickered across the screens—jagged mountain ranges of red and green, rising and falling in a frantic, never-ending pulse. My hand reached for the heavy crystal glass at the corner of the desk. The amber liquid inside swirled as I gave it a slow, deliberate tilt. CLINK. The sound of ice striking glass was a gunshot in the silence. I didn't drink. I simply held the glass, letting the numbing cold seep into my palm and travel up my arm, anchoring me to the present.

Brielle swallows hard beside me, and I squeeze her hand just as Jack walks back in with a huge smile on his face. “I think we just got lucky,” he tells us. “My buddy just told me that entire wall was constructed using riot glass.” “Riot glass?” Brielle asks. “What does that mean? Like hurricane glass?” “No, riot glass is even better,” I say. “Hurricane glass is only rated for high winds. Riot glass is designed specifically to withstand objects hitting it – even something traveling at a high rate of speed.” “Like bullets?” “Yep. The glass will spiderweb, but not shatter.”

The half-eaten food beneath it was—chips, burgers, cola, pizza, roast chicken, roast lamb, even a plate of rice with stew. They howled like beasts. Words failed them, and only screams came out. Then they hurled themselves at the glass with the last strength their frost-hollowed bodies could muster. Cyrus lifted his cup, watching them through the steam. "Who said glass has to be weaker than metal?" he said calmly. He hadn't chosen ordinary glass. He had refused the cheap metal reinforcement the security firm offered and paid a fortune for a single, custom-made sheet of bulletproof glass instead.