Tarnished Embers Book Novels & Stories

The soil remembers its blood. She lifted a hand and the world around them twisted— Fire. Screams. The mountain cracking like bone under pressure. Wolves tearing into wolves. Humans fleeing the forest. And the sky above—bleeding silver light, torn by shadow. In the center of it all, Ember saw herself. Her child. Asher. Julian. Vivianne. Even Aiden. All caught in a storm they couldn’t stop. **EMBER (shaken)** Tell me how to stop it.

​We broke the surface into a chaotic world of roaring wind and screaming alarms. ​I gasped, choking wildly, cold air and salt water tearing through my lungs as I coughed uncontrollably. The air burned like acid. All around us, the ocean was covered in a thick layer of burning oil, floating debris, and black smoke. The stern of the Vance Empress was gone, swallowed by the waves, leaving only the burning bow tilting high into the sky before sliding into the deep with a sickening roar. ​"I have her! Secure the line!" a voice roared beside me.

She gritted her teeth, exerted tremendous force to lift the upper half of my body, and dragged me out of the laboratory step by step. The scorching air roasted our skin. Even a handful of Serena's hair had been seared, the end of those burnt strands glowing faintly. Despite that, Serena didn't seem to be in pain while dragging me ahead. Conflicted emotions stirred in my chest as I peered at her side profile, which had been stained with ash. I struggled to raise my hand and look at my watch. There wasn't much time left. We would die here if we didn't leave now.

Ember The throne room doesn’t feel like a prison anymore. That realization should scare me more than chains ever could, but it doesn’t. It feels right. It feels like I belong here. The walls glow softly, not with firelight but with something warmer, like dusk stretched thin across stone. Tall windows pour in sunlight that shouldn’t exist here, banners of obsidian and gold stirring as if there’s a breeze. The air smells like incense and embers instead of blood and rot.

Mother hurriedly tried to explain, “He staged all of this! He’s always been good at playing the victim to gain sympathy. He just wants attention!” Comments from the livestream exploded, and every insult was directed at me. “He's so scheming! He’s got a whole set of lies up his sleeve!” “He looks innocent, but deep down, he’s rotten to the core! No wonder the Yule family kicked him out!”

“If a rat breathed here, I want to know which direction its whiskers pointed.” The soldiers surged forward. Doors were kicked off hinges. Cellars torn apart. Barns reduced to splinters. Tunnels checked. Wells inspected. Every scrap of cloth lifted. Every chimney probed. But Emery’s family had vanished into the world like smoke. Hours later, the fires had risen—first small, then roaring. Damian didn’t stop the torches. Tarron Vale burned in wide, hungry sheets of orange. What Emery abandoned, Damian erased. Still, no trace.

She read: “When all is ash, You are still altar. When the house falls, Your Spirit finds shelter. When they scatter us, You gather fire from the wind.” James exhaled. No applause. No spotlight. Just peace. The kind that doesn’t come from victory. The kind that only comes from surrender. End of Chapter 15🤭 •Chapter 16 – The Fire That Walks The Ember Ground had no walls, but it echoed like a temple. For seven days straight, they gathered the children of the slum, the weary souls, the angry, the hungry, the hopeless. They came not for spectacle, but because something burned here. Something not made by man.

“You are mine now, Emory Lannister. The last wolf born of betrayal. The bridge between blood and shadow. When the sun rises red, you will lead them, and burn the world clean.” And for a moment, Emory had believed him. Since it was the first time in his life that someone did not ask him to be less. So when he saw himself in the broken window of the altar his eyes were no longer golden. They were turning black. Rain had not yet awakened, when the sun had risen. Three days was all that she had been caught between life and non-life, her body still in the debris of the Lannister estate, and her blood burning slightly under her flesh like thin lines of molten metal.

The embers of redemption had ignited a fire within us, a fire that would guide us through the darkness and lead us to victory. As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a final burst of orange and pink across the sky, we set forth on our final mission. The stage was set, the players in position. It was time to confront our demons, to seek redemption, and to bring an end to the cycle of pain and suffering. This chapter, filled with determination and a sense of purpose, would lead us to the climactic final act. The embers of redemption would blaze into an inferno, consuming all

Rhett coughed out. Aislen shook her head and jumped to grasp the top of the wall and pull herself up. The bricks were warm under her skin, almost enough to burn. Within the courtyard, there was a scorch mark radiating out from a central point, where Ember stood utterly naked, wings spread. The wings were not wings as Samuel’s were, like those of a bat covered in black membrane, rather Ember’s wings were those of fire, the flickering flame generating enough heat to lift the ends of her long red hair.