Snow Like Ashes Novels & Stories

However, the truth was, my name had been cleared. I took care of everything and sold the old house, ready to leave it all behind. Hank sent word he wanted to meet, but I did not want to see him. Outside, the snowmen stood like silent guests waiting for a wedding that would never happen. Nancy, with hands purple from the cold, drew a smile on a snowman's face. She smiled at me, just a little. She looked the same as always, but she seemed really tired. When I opened the door, she ran right into my arms.

Just before my wedding began, Mom suddenly clutched her chest and collapsed. I abandoned everything and rushed her to the emergency department myself. But the moment we arrived, a message appeared in the family group chat. "I've got Rachel tricked into going to the hospital. The ceremony can begin." Dad replied immediately, "Don't worry. I'm already walking Serena down the aisle." My brother, Andrew, added, "Serena waited ten years. Today she can finally marry Isaac openly." All three messages were deleted almost at once. Then my best friend, Phoebe Langdon, accidentally posted a video from the ceremony into the group. In the video, my younger sister Serena Calloway was wearing the w

Madeline snapped instantly like a puppet without strings, losing all consciousness. Her world seemed to have turned dark all of a sudden and the intense pain like her skin was peeling swallowed her consciousness entirely. "No!" She desperately rushed towards the ashes that were gradually washed away by snow and rain. Madeline cried sorrowfully, her trembling hands desperately rubbing against the uneven ground as she tried to collect the remaining ashes. However, the ashes were gradually stained red from the blood flowing out of her palms, and then it melted away in the rain and snow.

"From the sky. And it hurt—not just the fall, but everything. The pain was everywhere like it lived in my bones. At first, I thought it was just a dream, but then the snow started falling. It was beautiful, soft... until I realized it was mixed with ash." Lykan's eyes narrowed slightly, but he said nothing. "When I looked down, the snow was red. Not pink, not stained. Red. Thick. Blood soaked everything. My hands were drenched in it, and I didn't even know why. Then I heard it—screaming, sobbing. Wolves howling. People are dying. The air smelled like burning flesh." Dominic flinched.

The kind that sharpens decisions instead of clouding them. “You want recalibration?” I whisper. “Here it is.” I pull—not violently, but decisively. The silver surges outward, not to destroy the cold but to redirect it, funneling it up and away, condensing it into a single, visible column of frost that twists skyward like a frozen spine. Windows crack from the pressure. Snow lifts from the ground, spiraling. The presence recoils. “Excessive,” it accuses. “Memorable,” I correct. The cold breaks, retreating in uneven waves until the night air snaps back into something breathable. The column collapses into harmless snow that drifts down over empty streets like an apology no one asked for.

Two days and then I'd be stuck in a house with Adrian Ashford for an entire Christmas season. More like forced to pretend we could work together when we couldn't even stand in the same room without wanting to kill each other. This was going to be an absolute disaster.

Pain grounded me better than breath. And then I saw it. The snow. Not white. Gray. Threaded with streaks of black. Faint at first—just a dusting over the driftline—but it thickened the further I looked. Smoke-smudged. Charred. As if ash had fallen from above. I knelt slowly, the fur hem of my coat brushing the frost. There was no fire trail. No embers. Nothing burned nearby. But the ash was real. Cold to the touch. And fresh.

“Don’t worry, it’s not toxic.” Looking around, I’m mortified. What I thought was snow, I realise painfully, is ash, stacked up around barren trunks, which lean and sway lazily a strangely sweet breeze. The leaves have been stained white by whatever plague ravished this land, whatever plague was meant for the war. I shiver. This plague could have been a weapon created many years ago, but yet the thought of it being intended for soldiers like my father have my stomach turning uneasily. “So if it’s not snow, what is it?” I ask, even though I already know.

I slumped in the chair and stalked the movement of his hands with my half-mast gaze. "Destroying what should have been destroyed years ago." With those whispered words, he brought the dancing flame to the cover of the book. Flames licked around the edges, blackening the pages until they withered and became a pale white. The ashes trickled down like the beginning of snow on a blistering winter night. Snow. Such a pure element to think of under such circumstances. Snow resembled a blank slate, new beginnings. Maybe this could have been what this was if I had burned the damn book the moment it landed in my possession.

Ayla’s POV Snow falls in a slow, quiet drift all around me—not in the kind of way that makes it look magical. It just looks endless, a dull color of white and cold. It settles over everything—the trees, the ground, rooftops—as if trying to cover things up. As if, if it piles high enough, no one will remember what’s buried underneath. As if blood has never soaked into the ground beneath my feet or screams don’t still echo in my mind when I close my eyes.