Tarnished Embers Novels & Stories

he said. "And I haven't even done any of those," I objected. "But that doesn't strip you of your birthright. You are still the daughter of a vampire hunter and that's all that matters," he told me. "So what does that mean?" I asked. "Well funny enough it also means that you are a miracle," he said. Okay now I was starting to think that he was really crazy. Here he was telling me the sordid tale of how I was the vampire's sworn enemy. The very same kind of people that they were planning to go to war with.

I felt the corner of my lips tug up as I saw her name. Ember: How is it you always seem to know when something's wrong? She gave me an inquisitive emoji beside it. Me: I have my ways. Tell me what's going on. I want to help with whatever it is. Ember: It broke… I'm certain Ash's barrier broke. I don't know how to help him. I've spent most of my evening in the library in my kingdom. I haven't found anything to extract dark magic. I thought of doing what my mom did and sucking the magic from him. If I did that though he wouldn't have any magic and I would be the one consumed by the darkness.

“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.

When they arrived, the Heartfire flared softly, recognizing the rhythm in their steps. Arianne smiled. “You are the Children of Dawn,” she said. “Not because you were born in the light, but because you chose to walk out of the dark.” --- The Lesson of the Ember She led them to the base of the Heartfire, where its glow pooled like liquid gold on the stone. “Each of you holds an ember,” she said. “It is small, fragile, and eternal.” The apprentices knelt, cupping their lights between trembling hands. Arianne continued:

The ones others called dangerous or cursed. Ariya made them powerful. She made them believe. Ember had stood at her side, not just as protector but as twin flame, tied by something deeper than blood. A bond older than their names, older than their fear. They were everything to each other. And then, they lost everything. - Ember’s steps slowed as she reached a clearing where stones jutted from the earth like old bones. She knelt, brushing frost away from a mark half buried in dirt, a crescent moon with a slash of lightning.

*Ember* The days dragged on in the suffocating confines of the breeder’s room. My spirit was fading like a dying ember. Weakness gnawed at me, and my body ached with every movement. The dim light of the day barely illuminated the corners of the room, casting elongated shadows that seemed to mirror my own sense of despair. How long had it been since Lukas last came in and forced me to use the last of my strength? I didn’t know. I couldn’t even count the days by how many times he came in to yell at me.

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

" I forced myself to look away from her breathtaking body and focus on the hand she had outstretched to me and then raised my eyes to meet her gaze, which held no trace of her smile. Her eyes tell a tale opposite the proper, posh princess she was trying to portray. Her eyes, a beautiful shade of emerald with brown honey flakes, told the truth. They radiated hatred, anger, and anguish. They showed shimmers of the need for an adventure, the hope for a new beginning, and when my gaze fully met hers, they showed a flicker of desire, of want. They lit a flame deep within me, an inferno that only she would be able to extinguish if I let her close enough. "Hades," I reply, ignoring her outstretched

I didn’t expect her to. Inside, the air was heavy and damp, and the scent of rot clung to every surface. The floor was littered with debris, broken tiles, shattered wood, and fragments of stone. Ember leaned against one of the sturdier walls, her arms crossed, her golden eyes sharp as they tracked my every movement. She was evaluating me, as she always did, weighing her chances of survival against the risk of staying close. “This is your big fucking plan?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Hide in a crumbling shack and hope they just…go the away?”

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