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.

He simply ceased to be—until he wasn't.


There was no ground, no sky. Just gray—an endless, flickering void where thoughts took shape and then faded like smoke.


He tried to move. His limbs obeyed, but the space around him refused to change.


"You are here because you no longer are."


At first, he thought it was his own voice.


A man—but not quite. His face was mirror-smooth, reflecting Kaelen's own features but aged, war-torn, hollow-eyed.


"The Unwoven Thread," the echo said. "Where names go when the Loom denies them."


Kaelen staggered backward. "Am I dead?"


"Worse," the echo replied. "You've been forgotten."


"But not fully. Not yet. Someone remembers you."


Kaelen thought of Lira. Her fire. Her stubbornness.


"She always was," the echo said. "But even she cannot hold every thread."


All around them, other figures began to shimmer into view—faces with no mouths, people who seemed drawn in pencil and then erased halfway.


Some wept. Some wandered. All of them were almost.


"No. They were never remembered to begin with."


He clenched his fists. "Then I have to go back."


"To go back is to become part of the weave again. You'll be bound to it. No freedom. No forgetting. No escape."


Kaelen stared at the nothingness surrounding him.


"Good. I'd rather suffer there than vanish here."


The echo smiled—and in that smile was pain.


"Then speak your own name. Loud enough that the world can't ignore it."


"Then you fade. And she fights without you."


"Son of no one. Named by flame. Marked by battle."


Back in the Threadlands, Lira screamed.


A bright blue thread flashed across the Loom—wild, unstable, angry.


"It's him," she breathed. "He's fighting back."


He landed hard, sword-first, in front of Myelren's nearest copy.


"I don't need fate. I just need a second chance."


He drove his blade forward—and the memory-thing screamed as it died.


Ashrel raised his blade beside them. "Save the reunion. We've still got eleven more."


Above, Myelren watched with its blank helm tilted.


"The thread has resisted. Interesting."


The being raised its hand—and the Severer copies drew closer.


But Lira was already summoning a storm of names.


Chapter 44 - The Unwoven Place