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.

The path out of the Vaultlands was scorched behind them.


Wherever Lira stepped, the stone whispered.


Names. Faces. Regrets. Moments that had never been hers to carry, bleeding through the fabric of time.


"You're different," Trellen said after the second day.


He didn't look at her when he spoke — just picked dried moss from his coat and watched the shadows for movement.


"You're not glowing, but you're louder now."


He nodded. "Not in sound. In… existence."


They were crossing the Drakenfall Ridge now, the northernmost finger of the Woundscar range — a stretch of dead peaks, dusted with frost and forgotten prayers.


Ansha walked ahead, keeping pace with a wind spirit no one else could see.


Davin brought up the rear, quieter than usual. He hadn't touched his blade since the Vault.


Lira tried not to feel what they were feeling. But ever since the Second Vault…


She could sense their memories — buried, bright, blistering.


Trellen's lonely hand reaching for a brother that had never been born.


That night, they camped near a crumbled watchtower — a ruin of the old Dominion, its stones carved with forgotten ward-runes.


The fire was small, cautious. She didn't dare feed it more than a whisper of spark — the sky was watching.


But in the flames… something flickered.


"I was before the Vault," the ash-boy replied. "I was your first memory. The one you gave away."


"The flame does not forgive those who leave it behind."


Then he vanished — smoke on the wind.


When morning came, the group found a trail of riders burned into the earth ahead.


The sigil on their banners was unmistakable:


Davin spat. "Ashrel's already moving. He's faster than we thought."


Lira knelt by the tracks, fingers brushing the scorched impressions.


"He's not coming for war," she said quietly.


Chapter 22 - Footprints of Fire