Tarnished Embers Novels & Stories

As Caelum’s body dissolved into motes of silver light, Iris’s spirit faded too, her voice lingering like a lullaby. “Balance… at last.” Vaelor’s Ember But far below, in the heart of the battlefield, a small ember of shadow pulsed faintly. Unseen, it whispered in a voice colder than death: “Balance is temporary… but darkness… darkness is eternal.”

I leaned in, tilting my chin up defiantly, prepared to take the hit. “Oh, go on, Ember. Hit me,” I taunted, my voice a low, dangerous murmur. “I’ll tell Alpha Thane everything. I’ll let him know how his ‘precious’ Ex-Luna is back to ruin our lives—and maybe even to harm me or my child.” I lowered my gaze to my tummy, rubbing it gently and lovingly, a sneer curling up on my lips before averting my gaze back to her. At that moment, Ember froze, her hand still raised but trembling. The fire in her eyes shifted, replaced by a simmering fury.

"Lauren… is it true?" My father’s head hung low. He said nothing, but his shoulders trembled with fury. "Lauren," Nora piped up sweetly from the side, her words soaked in poison. "You’ve gone too far. Sleeping with so many men… What if you infected Michael with something dirty?" My nails dug into my palms, sharp crescents cutting flesh. I opened my mouth, ready to strike back— However, Michael cut me off, his eyes clouded with something dark. "Lauren… I never thought you could be this filthy."

And I see it. A ring of trees scorched black at the base, yet alive. In the center, glowing like an ember from the bones of the earth, is the Heartwood Emberroot. Blood-red tendrils curl around stone. Fire dances faintly through its veins. I step forward. “Wait,” Inferno warns. “He’s coming.”

Ashborn crucified in mirrors. Sirelia smiling with no mouth. And the God Below whispering, “Reflection is the first betrayal.” She stumbles back. The vision fades. But her palm still smokes. Later that night, Emberhold holds silence. Not mourning. Listening. Because something in the fire has changed. And not all the dead are resting. Not anymore.

The Keeper’s Ember pulsed gently at her side. “This fire,” she said softly, “has passed through hands bloodied by war, cracked by grief, and strengthened by love.” She looked from face to face. “But now, it passes into yours.” One by one, she approached the carriers, touching the orb gently to their flames. Each ember grew—not with force, but with resonance, a subtle harmony of light and memory. When she reached the final carrier, a boy no older than twelve from the Southern Caverns, he leaned forward and whispered, “I will remember you.”

EMBER Ember’s breath came in sharp, uneven bursts as heat flooded through her skin, making the tangled sheets around her feel suffocatingly tight against her flushed body. The loft lay shrouded in darkness, save for the neon glow that bled through the rain-streaked windows, casting erratic shadows across the walls. Outside, the city thrummed with its restless insomnia, the buzz of distant signs, the hiss of traffic slicing through wet streets, and faint music leaking from some apartment three floors below, yet none of it pierced the intimate bubble enveloping her. In that moment, all that existed was him: Ghost, his body hovering over hers like a broad, solid wall of quiet strength, pressing

Now, I have turned those cinders into a blade. Bennett did not lose hope, desperate to hit back after losing everything. "You think you're the winner?" The email attachment showed my face crudely edited onto explicit images, with the backdrop of our family's hotel, sent to every young member of the prominent families.

Camilla Gomez sacrificed everything for Darian Baldore. When he was accused of murder—a crime that could have shattered his billion-dollar empire—she took the blame, trusting his promises that he would clear her name and bring her back to him once it was safe. Instead, she was abandoned. Branded a killer. Sent to prison to rot while the man she loved moved on as if she had never existed. Worse, she was carrying his child, forced to bring new life into the world while trapped in a nightmare. Seven years later, she returns—not as a broken woman, but as a force to be reckoned with. She’s rebuilt herself and forged her own empire, and she has only one goal: to make them pay for their betrayal.