Page 14 of Ashfall

She doesn’t know. She can’t. Not yet. And gods help me, she smells like fire and temptation and the kind of warmth I thought the centuries had stolen from me.

My chest tightens with the weight of everything I can’t say, can’t show. I turn from the path she took and storm the opposite way—into the trees, away from sight, away from the edge I’m dangerously close to falling over.

Not again. Never again... I’ve been here before.

Somewhere in Central Europe

Centuries Ago

She was young, mortal, and mine. A dark-eyed farm girl from a mountain village whose laughter used to make me feel like a man and not a monster. For three seasons, I watched her. Brought her gifts in secret. Guarded her lands with fire when bandits circled.

And then the rains didn’t come. The sky stayed dry for weeks, then months, turning their soil to dust and their hopes to ash. The river shrank to a trickle. Livestock fell. The crops withered in the fields, stalks brittle as bone. The villagers, once wary but content, turned fearful, superstitious, and cruel. Desperation makes monsters of men—and their eyes turned to the cliffs where they knew I watched.

They remembered the dragon in the cliffs—the silent sentinel they once feared but tolerated. But now, in their desperation, fear turned to blame. And they remembered the girl he watched. The one who wandered too close to the edge, who smiled at shadows and came back with wildflowers from places no one else dared walk. They whispered she had beenmarked, that her womb was cursed or blessed, depending on the elder you asked. They decided the fire on the mountain wanted her. And they gave her to me.

A sacrifice, they said. They dressed her in white, painted her with ash and crushed petals, and tied her hands with twine. Only by offering her—by letting her blood soak the earth and her screams fill the sky—could they please the gods. They didn’t ask if she was willing. They didn’t care.

I came down from the sky like fury incarnate, a streak of gold and flame against the darkening clouds. My wings beat thunder into the air as I descended, ash swirling in my wake. I landed with a quake that sent the villagers scrambling, screams echoing across the ridge. But I didn't torch them. I didn’t roar. I didn’t take vengeance.

I came for her.

She was bound at the edge of the stone altar, trembling but proud, her eyes searching the heavens. When they met mine, I saw it—recognition, terror, and something else. I scooped her into my claws, cradling her carefully, and soared away before they could comprehend what had happened. I brought her home. To safety. To truth.

She screamed when I landed; her cry echoing against the stone walls like a dying prayer. Her eyes met mine, wide with disbelief—and for a heartbeat, I wondered if what I had seen had been hope. A fragile, flickering thread of it, wrapped in awe and trust.

Until I changed. Until I shed the beast and became the man. Until I stepped from flame and smoke, naked and powerful, and she saw not just the dragon—but the monster beneath. Until she realized what I truly was, and the hope shattered like glass.

She ran. Terrified. Her scream echoed down the walls of my lair as she stumbled through the rocks, her bare feet slicingagainst stone, her sobs breaking something ancient in me. She didn’t look back.

When she went back to them, they greeted her like a savior. They wrapped her in wool and righteousness. And they came for me—with torches raised, with rusted blades and a holy man's fury, convinced they were cleansing the earth of a monster.

I didn’t kill them. I could have. I could’ve turned them all to ash with a single breath. But I didn’t. I let them chase me from the cliffs I’d called home for over a century. I let them take the place where I once dreamed of something gentler.

I left. My home. All of it gone.

Mogollon Rim, Arizona

Present Day

I stare down at my hands, now shaking—scarred knuckles dusted in soot, fingers trembling with the weight of everything I’ve lost and everything I want. The fire hums under my skin, too close to the surface, itching to rise. My palms curl slowly into fists, and the ache in my chest deepens. This isn’t weakness. It’s memory. It’s restraint. It’s the furious need to hold myself together, when every cell inside me demands I burn.

I will not lose her. Not to fear. Not to fire. Not to the past that’s clawed at my heels for centuries. Not to the regret that still haunts the edges of every choice I make. Ember deserves better—truth, protection, choice. I’ll give her that, even if it breaks every instinct I have to wait. Even if it burns me alive.

The ridge above the canyon is quiet when I join the rest of Blackstrike. The pine-sweet wind brushes past us, thick withthe scent of burned earth. The unit’s already assembled—Kade, Rafe, and Jace—all of them leaning over a digital map spread across a mobile ops table, their expressions grim. They glance up as I approach, their eyes sharp with questions, but none of them voice the obvious. Not about the tension on my face. Not about Ember.

Jace offers a slow nod, the only greeting I get. It's enough. We speak more with silence than words, and right now, there’s too much heat in me for civility.

Kade breaks the silence. “We’ve reviewed the flare pattern on the eastern slope. You were right.”

I nod once. “It’s him.”

Rafe whistles low. “Malek’s alive.”

“As alive as he ever was. And twice as dangerous.”

Jace crosses his arms. “Why now?”

“Because we’ve gone soft,” I say. “Because we let the world forget what we are. And he never did.”

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