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

The road curved eastward, deeper into the lowlands, where mist clung to the soil and wildflowers grew in muted, grieving colors. What had once been a cradle of voices—villages strung like pearls across the vale—now sat hushed, untouched by wind or birdsong.

They passed through the first hamlet in silence. No guards, no people, no signs of violence. Just empty homes with doors ajar, hearths long gone cold, and paper threads hanging from the eaves like pale, fluttering ghosts.

"This place isn't abandoned. It's erased."

Soran stiffened, hand on the hilt of his blade. "It's the Seamwright's work. A newer method. Cleaner. More precise. They rewrite the memory of a place… until even the land forgets it had a name."

Maerai knelt beside a well and ran her fingers through the air—catching nothing, yet frowning as if she'd brushed a web.

"They've cast a veil here," she whispered. "A forgetting. Not destruction—suppression."

Maerai looked up. "Yes. But not with spells."

She stepped into the town square, where a crumbling fountain once sang, and began to hum. Just a single, quiet note—one her mother used to sing when the fire was low and the night felt too large. Her voice echoed faintly off stone.

Then Soran, trembling but steady, added a low harmony, rough as broken bark.

Only a whisper at first, curling down the lane. A door creaked. A bell shivered on its string. The veil didn't break—but it shifted.

And beneath it, the memory stirred.

The Seamwright's Wake

As they set up camp near the edge of the silenced village, Soran explained the Seamwright.

"He's not a soldier. Not like me. He was once a Cartographer of the Thread. He used to map the names of rivers, forests, bloodlines. He knew where names were born."

Kaelen frowned. "Then why serve the Loom?"

"Because he realized names could be stitched apart," Soran replied. "The Weavekeeper offered him a needle that could rewrite history."

Vel, sharpening his knives, muttered, "I'd gut him with it."

"You'd be too late," Maerai said. "He doesn't fight with blades."

She traced something in the dirt—a spiral of ink-lines with no center. "He fights with doubt. If we reach the next village and don't know who lived there, we won't just be lost. We'll be rewritten ourselves."

She rose, her eyes catching the stars as they broke through the veil overhead.

"And if we forget, we fight to remember."

In the early dark, Rien walked alone.

Through alleyways where children had once played. Past homes that still held chairs around tables, as if waiting for something to resume. She entered a house with no door and sat beside a cradle still draped in wool.

She didn't know where it came from. It just rose—like smoke from an ember.

A lullaby echoed faintly in her mind, one she had never heard but somehow knew. A woman's voice, warm and worn. A child's laugh. A garden of sun-fruit and mint leaves.

And for one moment, Mira's mother remembered that she had ever existed.

Later that night, Maerai joined Rien atop a nearby hill.

"You stirred the Threads again. The Spire will feel it."

Maerai stared out over the misty village, where echoes now sang softly on the wind.

"They've begun watching," she said. "Three crows with broken eyes followed us from the ridge."

"No. Worse. Wild Threads. Unanchored. They no longer obey the Loom—but they don't serve us, either."

"Then we'll show them a name worth following."

A wind rose from the east, carrying more than cold.

The Silenced Vale