Romans & histoires The Candle In The Wind

It whipped my hair across my face. I brought with me a single bundle wrapped in rough cloth: candles. Dozens of them gathered from the castle's abandoned stores and the village's reluctant merchants. Each one cost me something coin I barely have, pride I can no longer afford to keep. Each one represents a confession, a blade pressed against my heart, a small light to honor the darkness I have wrought.

Hours passed in the blur of urgency; outside, what had passed for quiet was just the city catching its breath for another scream. By nightfall, a crowd gathered at the windmill. Wyn took the top floor, reading bulletins through a broken radio, transmitting orders in code. Lyra prowled the perimeter with a pair of knives she’d named Love and Hate, and Xander ferried crates of food and water for the ones who couldn’t walk. The windmill’s sails turned for the first time in years, catching the wild inland wind. Carolina, bone-tired and smiling, listened to the creak and whir. She leaned out a window and saw the river’s ghost-lights, the city burning but beautiful both.

Grandpa Benson and Uncle Mark watched, their breaths held, as the casket disappeared from sight, swallowed by the earth that would now be her resting place. Suddenly, a gust of wind swept through the cemetery, strong and forceful, as if the very earth was mourning her departure. It came so suddenly and with such intensity that everyone instinctively shielded their eyes, hats and scarves flying off in the wind. Flowers scattered, their delicate petals caught in the air like fragments of broken memories. The wind howled for a moment, echoing the grief of those gathered, and then just as abruptly as it had come, it died down, leaving behind an eerie silence.

I just nodded, not adding anything else. We had just sparked up a fire to chase away the chill in our place when, out of nowhere, the power cut out. The room plunged into darkness, leaving only the glow of our stubborn little stove. Yvonne went off with the landlord to hunt down some candles. Wade was right on her heels, moving through the flickering shadows. I caught a glimpse of him trying to hug Yvonne, but she pushed him off in a flash. "Thomas isn't feeling great. You stay and take care of him," she said, her voice carrying just enough for me to catch it.

The wind moved first. Not the trees. Not the wolves. The wind. It slid between bodies like fingers through hair, like tongues across skin, humming with something ancient… something awakened. It carried the copper heat of blood and the crushed sweetness of jasmine petals. It whispered names none of them had spoken in decades. Names like prayers. Names like curses. And at the center of it all—Jasmine. Not Jasmine the courtesan. Not Jasmine the captive. Not even Jasmine the whisper in Blackfang’s filthy court.

Ember We regrouped inside, the door slammed shut behind us, sealing out the smoke and the screams and the part of the city that still remembered what fear felt like. The Velvet Coil’s back room was dim, lit only by low-burning candles and the faint glow of sigils etched into the walls. My blackened flame still licked along my veins, restless, alive. It hadn’t faded.

Owen found a box of thick pillar candles in the storage closet. They were leftovers from a cancelled reading event, vanilla scented. He carried them back to the main reading room, where Jax had arranged two of the heavy leather armchairs near the big window. The rain was still lashing against the glass, and the only light came from the occasional flash of lightning that lit up the room in stark, white bursts.

"Whitney, you don't hold this against me, do you?" Surrounded by a haze of smoke, Colton replayed everything he had done lately, again and again, and slapped himself in frustration. "Colton, how could you be so easily swayed by Janice, forgetting the one you cherish most?" he murmured to himself. He snuffed out his cigarette and gazed at the darkened villa before him. Whitney was probably fast asleep by then. After parking the car, Colton lingered at the doorstep, hesitating until the last wisp of smoke faded away, yet he could not bring himself to go inside.

Ivy obediently accepted the bowl and drank it all in one go. Seeing how her face crunched up due to the drink's bitterness, Mary immediately handed her a piece of candy. "That's a good girl. Two more rounds and we're all done. By then, your leg will be healed, and you can once again stand on stage." Heartache gleamed in Mary's eyes. She patted Ivy's head lovingly. Ivy looked at her legs. She had indeed successfully escaped from the fire, but she did not expect to see barrels of gasoline in the abandoned warehouse.

Still, that pain made me understand one thing even more clearly. They weren't worth it. The project wrapped up extra smoothly, and Harry and I had an extra free day. "Jan, there's a famous cafe nearby. Let's go check it out." Harry stood at the door of my room in a light gray hoodie. He looked no different from when he had been in college. Looking at the expectation in his eyes, I couldn't bring myself to refuse. When we arrived, I realized the famous cafe he meant was a cat cafe. When we pushed the door open, the smell of coffee mingled with the cats' soft meows in the cafe. Before I even sat down, one of them jumped onto the table and rubbed its fluffy head against my hand.