Francis_9439

Ashes of the First Flame

A novel by [Francis 9439]

For centuries, the world of Elaris has burned under the divine light of the First Flame, a sacred fire worshiped by the tyrannical Solar Dominion — a theocratic empire that claims godhood and unity through conquest. The Empress rules with holy fire and iron will, casting down cities that refuse her light, branding all who resist as heretics and rebels.

But across the shattered lands of the Free Marches, a spark of defiance refuses to die.

Kaelen Virelth, the exiled son of a disgraced noble house, is thrust into leadership after his brother is assassinated. Once a scholar and a pacifist, Kaelen becomes the reluctant face of a rebellion. As war spreads like wildfire, Kaelen must decide whether to become a killer to save the world — or lose everything he loves.

On the other side of the war, Serenya Valir, a devoted priestess of the Flame, begins to question the cost of blind faith. Sent to root out traitors within the Dominion, she uncovers dark secrets buried beneath sacred temples — and a prophecy foretelling a choice that will either redeem the world or end it in ash.

Amid the chaos rise other forces: the exiled Scorched Order, mage-knights blamed for a forgotten catastrophe; the elemental Aetherborn Tribes, whose magic the Dominion fears and hates; and the seductive spies of the Sable Garden, who pull strings behind every throne.

As old gods stir and ancient powers awaken, love blooms between enemies, loyalty crumbles into betrayal, and the line between salvation and damnation blurs. To stop the cycle of fire and ruin, someone must destroy the First Flame — or become its final bearer.

But power never dies quietly.

Ashes of  the First Flame

They traveled beneath the roots of the world.

Through narrow stone paths chiseled before nations, past vaults filled with weeping echoes, Rien and Seron descended into the Severers' hidden sanctum: Iskarath.

There was no warmth—yet no cold either.

The other Severers were already waiting.

Nine once lived. Four remained. Seron was their first voice. The second was a woman with a throat of silver cord—her name was Vel.

She stepped forward with eyes dark as emberstone.

Vel's voice was fractured, but strong. She held a box made of obsidian and ash-wood, carved with sigils no one outside Iskarath had spoken since the Severing.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked Rien.

Inside was a single page. Not parchment. Not metal.

But dead. Fossilized. Preserved. Untouched by the Loom's will.

"This is a page from the Book of the Unwoven."

Rien stepped closer. The thread-page shimmered—then pulsed.

"This story was never meant to end.

This flame was never meant to be bound.

This queen was never meant to forget."

Vel nodded. "Then you understand why we brought you here."

Rien looked around the chamber. Stone, silent. Four Severers. One page.

A pedestal rose from the stone. Upon it, a second box. Not black, but white as scorched bone.

Seron unsheathed Ashweld and placed it beside the box.

"You will not fight the Loom with swords," he said.

"You will fight it with stories too strong to be unwritten."

And for a moment—just a moment—every star in the sky above the world flickered.

As if something beyond fate had opened its eyes.

The Sanctum of Broken Flame