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.

It peeled open like fire tearing paper.


Lira stepped through — but it was not the same girl who had entered.


They smoldered with something quieter… older.


The kind of fire that doesn't light a room — but remembers what it used to burn.


He dropped to one knee, not in reverence, but instinct. Shadows curled tighter to his boots like they feared her.


Ansha backed away, whispering spells she didn't cast.


She looked at her hands, turning them slowly.


They left trails in the air — not flame, not light — but memory. Echoes.


"I didn't bring something back," she said softly. "I woke something up."


High above, Vel Atra stood on the cliff's edge, robes fluttering in the heat wind.


"And the first lie the flame ever told."


In the cold tower of Vehlor's Reach, the stars were wrong tonight.


And then the fire in the basin before her — a ceremonial hearth long cold — flared to life.


Just fire, screaming her name in silence.


Across the sea, in a city burned and rebuilt a dozen times, Ashrel sat alone in his chamber, surrounded by red banners of the Kindled Crown.


His hand — the one marked with the Crown's blessing — began to blister.


Then he rose, and for the first time in weeks, donned his ashesilk armor.


"Begin the march," he told his generals.


She looked at the shattered ground beneath her feet.


"We're not fighting to protect the flame anymore."


Chapter 21 - What Burn Behind Her Eyes