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

A silence so loud it pushed against her ears, like pressure from a thousand memories pressing inward.

Just a single strip of flame-pale fabric.

Upon it, written in letters that shifted and flickered:

The Severers knelt again, but this time, not to her.

"That," Vel whispered, "is the name of the Loom."

Rien's fingers trembled. "I thought it had no name."

"But all things that exist have names.

The moment she touched the cloth, something shattered far away.

A cry went up in the White Halls of the Priors. A thousand threads snapped. Loom-scribes collapsed in convulsions. The Everquill cracked down its center.

The Loom screamed—not aloud, but through reality itself.

And in a tower beyond time, a king with a stitched mouth began to bleed from the seams.

Kaelen doubled over in the Grove, gasping.

Davin's ink spilled upward, defying gravity.

Ashrel fell into vision, seeing the entire weave fray like torn skin.

And it made them remember who they were—before the world told them otherwise.

Vel looked at Rien with wonder—and fear.

Seron frowned. "You would destroy the name?"

Rien smiled—not cruelly, not madly.

And in the deep reaches of forgotten dark, the Loom whispered in panic:

The Name That Burns