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.

Where she had stood now shimmered with fragments of her form.


Skin mapped in glowing runes that shifted with the thoughts of every soul she had touched.


Davin turned away, not in fear—but reverence.


"She's not… human anymore," Kaelen said, voice shaking.


"No," Ashrel whispered. "She's something older. Something truer."


And every forgotten war, every buried name, every sealed sorrow of the world looked back.


And through it, the world began to change.


Below the Mount of Origin, the Echoing Fields began to stir. Graves that had long lain still whispered with memory.


In the shattered Library of Lirin'Ka, books that had crumbled to ash reformed from dust and began rewriting themselves.


Children across the lands woke from dreams weeping—for people they'd never met, lives they'd never lived, but somehow knew.


When she spoke, it was not in any single voice.


It was in many—hundreds, thousands—layered into harmony.


Kaelen reached for her—then hesitated.


The sky trembled—not in warning, but in response.


Far beyond the mountains, across oceans and broken empires, seals shattered.


Chains that had held the Triune dormant.


And somewhere in the White Hollow, one of the Triune opened her ancient eyes.


The Flame's memory had reached them too.


Back at the Cradle, Ashrel finally stepped forward.


Her gaze lingered on the Threadlands, where timelines collapsed into spirals.


"We unmake the lie this world was built on."


It hovered before Lira—then shattered, revealing a path made of shifting light.


Lira's gaze burned with peace and grief alike.


"The one even the First Flame was trying to forget."


And so they descended from the mountain.


To gather the one hundred and twenty names.


To tell the world the truth of its own soul.


And behind them, the Mount of Origin began to melt—


Chapter 39 - What Remains After Becoming