Page 1 of Ashfall

PROLOGUE

DAX

Above the Coconino National Forest

Mogollon Rim, Arizona

Present Day

The fire breathes beneath me, a living thing—hot, reckless, hungry.

Smoke punches upward in towering columns, dense and churning, clawing at the stars that haven’t even risen yet. The trees scream in silence, their limbs cracking and curling as flame devours them from the inside out. I ride the heat currents above it all, wings slicing through air thick with ash and memory.

This place knows me.

And I know what’s coming.

I bank left, keeping my altitude just above the wall of smoke that stretches across the Mogollon Rim. Below, the canyon glows like a furnace—orange veins of fire snaking through the forest floor, pulsing like magma in the earth's bloodstream.

It shouldn’t be burning this way.Not this fast.Not here.

This isn’t nature losing control.This is someone taking it.I’ve seen enough fire to know the difference.

The wind presses against me, and I adjust—wings stretching, catching the current as I scan the perimeter. My senses extend outward, tuned to every flicker of heat, every unnatural surge of flame. I inhale and taste more than smoke: accelerants, buried resentment, rage that's festered too long.

I should land. Should return to human form, check in with my men—my team. The Blackstrike Unit is already mobilizing. Every one of them is a dragon, like me. Every one of them walks a razor’s edge between duty and destruction.

That edge gets thinner by the year.

For men like us—ancient, cursed, barely leashed—it’s the mate bond that keeps the beast in check. That mythical thread between dragon and fated mate, the only thing that quiets the hunger, the fury, the fire inside.

For over a thousand years of war, exile, blood, and flame, I have searched, but never found her. Not in all the centuries I’ve carried this burden.

I’ve burned kingdoms to the ground. Fought gods masquerading as men... and men masquerading as gods. Buried brothers who didn’t deserve to die. Now I lead a unit of those like me—warriors bound by oath, masked by myth, risking everything to save a world that would hunt us if it knew we existed.

Even so, I can’t stop this fire alone. Not this one. Not what’s coming.

The air changes, pressure dropping. A second pulse of heat flares to the north—unnatural, exact. That’s no lightning strike. It’s a second ignition point. Someone wants this forest gone.

I roar, the sound swallowed by the wind and lost in the smoke. Below, trees crack and collapse, helpless.

And I feel it again. That clawing guilt. That impossible weight.

I am the oldest of those descended from my clan. I know of only one who is older. I was there when our dwindling numbers forced us to retreat from the world of men. I carry the legacy. The curse. The command.

Every time my men jump into hell, I wonder which one won’t climb out. Which one will burn out from within. Which one will lose the battle to the dragon in his blood.

And every time, I swear it won’t be today.Not if I can stop it.Not while I still breathe.

I angle my wings and dive, a shadow cutting through smoke and heat.The fire has a master, and I am he. This time I will notwait for fate to intervene.

CHAPTER 1

EMBER

Coconino National Forest

Mogollon Rim, Arizona

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