Tarnished Embers Novels & Stories

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.

“We fight.” In the Shadows Ignis stood in the dark. Watching through fire. He had seen everything. Lycan’s death. Zuri’s grief. Daisy’s pain. He smiled. “Let them gather. Let them burn with hope.” He turned to the white-haired girl—**Ember**. “Soon,” he said. “The child will come to me. And when she does… she will burn this world to ash.” Rosa’s POV They told me Lycan was gone.

“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:

And if that blade was unsheathed too quickly, without guidance, without grounding It would cut through everything. Even those she loved. Even herself. - Ember rose, continuing through the ghost paths old wolves once used, past trees marked with moon sigils, past the place where Ariya had fallen. A broken altar under a weeping cedar, its sap dripping like slow tears. Ember crouched, pressing her palm to the frozen earth, breathing in the cold. “Come back whole,” she whispered, letting her breath warm the frost. “Come back not as fury alone, but as the Queen we lost.

*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 flames went up, penetrating the maurium, and disappeared with a bright, momentary flash of light which left the lamplight a shimmering, radiant gold. "Ah, yes," he said happily, "that is better, isn't it?" "It is," she said, smiling. ‘Amazing how they do that.' "Will it stay like that?" she asked him. "No,” he sighed with the voice of some lament. "Pyrite must be maintained. The same is not true of maurium. Maurium is the natural state of planetyroid's decay, whereas pyrite is the restoration of its original intent. We inhabit a world which lends itself to decay rather than intention and maurium more than pyrite."

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?”

He held his phone and watched the video all night long. The next morning, when he looked in the mirror, he saw a man who looked like a vagrant—unshaven, haggard, and lifeless. He stared at his own reflection and muttered bitterly, "You deserve this." … On the day of my wedding, all my college classmates showed up, including Tristan. At first, I was worried he would cause trouble again. I didn't want to be disturbed by him anymore. Even with my good temper, I couldn't stand being constantly tangled up in his drama.

Alpha Cyrus drew his sword from his sheath. My heart was beating, I couldn't die like this. Not now, not here, I had a whole life in front of me. I crawled backward slowly and the guard held me steady. "I find you, Hope Embers, guilty of treason and I hereby sentence you to death by beheading under the full moon in two days time." My heart fell to the pit of my stomach.