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 mountain wind carried no warmth.

It rolled down from the northern peaks in slow, aching waves—part breath, part memory. It stirred the rebel camp where torches burned low, their flames flickering like thoughts too fragile to hold. Beneath the smoke and moonlight, Rien sat on the edge of a cliff that overlooked the black valley, her knees drawn to her chest, the Rebel Thread wound tight around her forearm.

She hadn't spoken since they left the Warrens.

Not to Kaelen. Not to Vel. Not even to her mother.

The woman who now slept just beyond the firelight. Whole. Breathing. Changed.

And yet, Rien could not look at her.

"I should be relieved," she murmured into the cold. "But I don't feel like I've won anything."

Behind her, the others stirred—quiet motions, soft footfalls, the scratch of steel being sharpened not for battle but because it filled the silence with something real.

Kaelen approached slowly, not sitting, just standing nearby like a tree that had decided to wait.

Rien didn't look up. "Parts of me. Fragments."

"It's more than anyone thought possible."

A Flame Rekindled

She glanced down at her hands—callused, stained, trembling beneath the surface. She'd burned for this. Bled for it. Crossed voids and veils and things too sacred to name. And now that she had her mother back, there was only the question that had haunted her longest:

Elyra—her mother, the once-great bearer of the First Flame—slept under wool and thread near the fire, her hair streaked with white, her face thinner, her light dimmer.

Not Elenna, the Seamwright's lie. Not a peaceful ghost in a stitched dream. Elyra.

"She's not who I remember," Rien whispered.

Kaelen finally sat beside her, legs crossed, elbows on knees. "Neither are you."

Sometimes, silence carried more truth than all the names they had reclaimed.

A Name in the Wind

A sudden gust swept through the trees, bending pine and brush. In it, Rien heard the faintest sound—a name, half-formed.

She rose at once, heart lurching with instinct. Kaelen was already standing.

He nodded slowly. "Not with my ears."

Together they turned toward the wind's origin—north, toward the Vale of Hollow Flame, a place even the Loom feared to touch. Beyond it, buried under time and war and silence, lay the Vault.

A place where the Loom first began.

"It's calling," Rien said, her voice distant.

She turned back toward camp, her eyes finding her mother in the firelight.

Elyra stirred now, dreaming with furrowed brow. One hand gripped the edge of her thread-cloak, and for a moment—just a moment—Rien thought she saw fire flicker beneath her palm.

Rien didn't say it like a question.

And Kaelen, after a pause, didn't argue.

On the Edge of the Old World

Not with trumpets or declarations, but in the hush of fading stars. Vel led the forward scouts. Lira carried a map etched in old ink. Soran remained close behind Rien, his sword no longer the sharpest weapon he bore.

And Elyra walked beside her daughter, wrapped in silence and a new thread—woven of memory and ruin and fire reignited.

But when the sun rose behind them, lighting the peaks in molten gold, Elyra looked sideways.

"I named you after a song," she said.

Rien blinked, startled. "What song?"

Elyra smiled faintly. "The one fire makes when it refuses to die."

Ashes Between Us