Ashes of Destiny and Desire (The Ashwing Ascension Adventures #1)

Prologue Phoenix Fire

ADARA

The fortress corridors were eerily silent as I made my way through them, each step echoing off ancient stone walls like a countdown to destiny.

The stolen ritual components thrummed with potential in my bag, their energy a stark counterpoint to the hollow ache in my chest. I'd always been good at taking things that didn't belong to me—especially when they were needed for a greater purpose. Behind me lay a note on his pillow:

Forgive me.

Some sacrifices are meant for those who can rise from their ashes.

-A

Three lines that could never fully capture what I needed to say. Three lines that might be the last words he'd ever have from me.

My fingers traced my lips absently, still feeling the ghost of his kiss, the lingering warmth that had traveled through me like wildfire.

"I'm with you," he'd said, his breath a caress against my skin.

The memory of my silent agreement burned in my throat like bitter ash.

In all my lives, through centuries of deaths and rebirths, I'd never found it quite this hard to do what needed to be done.

The depth of this attachment was as terrifying as it was novel.

And yet I knew with bone-deep certainty that this was the only way.

Playing hero was my specialty, after all—even when no one would thank me for it.

The ravine ahead pulsed with malevolent energy, the air thick with an insidious corruption that carried the metallic tang of blood and ozone.

My skin crawled, flame-script patterns flaring defensively beneath my skin as every instinct screamed at me to turn back.

But I couldn't. Turning tail wasn't my style, especially when the alternative—watching him risk everything, knowing I could have prevented it—was unthinkable.

Some called it stubbornness; I preferred to think of it as focused determination.

Dead vegetation twisted into increasingly unnatural shapes, their withered forms reaching toward the sky like grasping fingers, contorted into bizarre geometries that would make nature itself recoil.

What had been merely corrupted ground had transformed into a nightmare landscape of decay.

The wrongness had grown exponentially since my last visit, and I could feel it trying to latch onto me, probing tendrils of defilement attempting to corrupt my very essence, almost as if it had been waiting specifically for me.

My internal fire flickered and surged in response, golden flame-script patterns rippling across my skin in defiance, fighting against the portal's hungry pull.

The ground beneath my feet pulsed with sickly veins of grey, spreading outward from the portal's epicenter like a cancerous web.

And there, at the heart of it all, the tear in reality gaped like a wound in the world itself, bleeding corruption into our realm.

With trembling hands—annoying weakness I couldn't afford right now—I began to lay out the circle, each placement precise and deliberate despite the portal's disorienting influence.

The first components felt lighter now, as if they'd lost mass to the portal's corruption, their substance leached away by proximity.

As I set them at the cardinal points—north, south, east, west—each ancient artifact settled into position with a soft hum.

Their otherworldly light pushed back the creeping darkness but seemed dimmer than before, struggling against the overwhelming wrongness.

"Come on, you overpriced magical trinkets," I muttered, "don't fail me now.

" The second set formed an inner ring, their primal power a counterpoint to the portal's chaotic energy.

The final pieces I'd already woven together, crafting intricate patterns that had taken hours of painstaking research, creating a grounding force to anchor the wild magics I was about to unleash.

The artifacts pulsed with discordant energy, their powers clashing instead of harmonizing, like instruments played by warring musicians.

The corruption's influence slithered between them, tainting what should have been pure.

My phoenix fire recoiled from the ritual circle as if sensing danger I didn't yet understand—a visceral warning that made my stomach clench with dread.

Even my most fundamental power seemed to be telling me this was a bad idea, but I didn't have time to rethink my path.

The ancient scroll trembled in my hand as I raised the staff high, its polished wood gleaming with embedded runes that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.

"I am Adara Ashwing," I intoned, my voice carrying the weight of countless lifetimes, ringing with the authority of one who had faced death and returned too many times to count.

"By the eternal flame that burns between worlds, I call upon the power of—" I faltered, my confidence wavering for the first time.

"What the hell?" The ancient script seemed to writhe on the page like a nest of vipers.

"Through the cycle of death and rebirth, grant me the strength to.

.." My voice trailed off, panic rising as the words blurred and shifted before my eyes, familiar phrases suddenly as alien as if they'd been written in a language I'd never seen.

After so many centuries of magic and rebirth, being unable to read a simple spell was terrifying.

Horror dawned as I realized my mistake. Cold dread washed over me despite the heat of my phoenix nature.

This wasn't part of the plan—this wasn't how it was supposed to go.

The more I tried to focus on the text, the more it seemed to twist away from my understanding, slippery as an eel.

Had the scroll been corrupted by the portal's influence, its ancient protections finally failing after centuries?

The symbols pulsed with a purple-green oily sheen that made my eyes water.

Or worse—and in my experience, it was almost always worse—had someone deliberately spelled the scroll, knowing someone besides themselves might attempt this ritual?

"Clever bastard," I muttered, grudging respect mixing with fury. "You saw me coming, didn't you?"

The artifacts resonated with violent energy, their competing magics turning volatile with a high-pitched whine that made my teeth ache.

The first components shattered with explosive force, their fragments dissolving into acrid mist that burned my lungs.

The second ring cracked with the sound of splintering bone and burst into unnatural green flames that leapt hungrily toward me.

The final pieces—ones I’d prepared with my own essence—simply turned to dust, leaving behind nothing but shadows that seemed to mock my efforts.

My carefully constructed ritual circle collapsed as reality buckled around me, the portal's malevolent corruption surging stronger, feeding on the chaos of failed magic like a predator gorging on wounded prey.

"Well, that went spectacularly wrong," I muttered, watching all my preparation literally turn to dust. "Story of my eternally recurring life. "

But as I watched my plans crumble, understanding struck like lightning, and I almost laughed at my own foolishness.

Phoenix fire wasn't meant for elaborate rituals or borrowed power—that was the approach of cautious scholars and timid mages, not a creature born of flame itself.

We were creatures of renewal, of burning away the old to make way for the new.

I didn't need artifacts or ancient words, didn't need tools made by lesser beings.

I just needed to burn.

Abandoning the ruined circle, I straightened my shoulders and stepped directly into the portal's influence, feeling its hungry pull trying to devour me.

My fire rose to meet the corruption, pure and primal, flame-script patterns blazing across my skin like living gold.

Each surge of power cauterized the edges of reality's wound with a sizzling hiss, but I could feel myself burning out with every pulse of energy, my very essence being consumed in the cleansing flame.

Reality itself warped and twisted around me as light and darkness clashed, dimensions folding and unfolding in impossible geometries.

The air crackled with competing energies that tasted of metal and starlight, the fabric of the world straining against the violation the portal represented.

Through the maelstrom, I caught a flicker of movement.

A familiar silhouette, backlit by the pulsing portal, his unmistakable form sending a rush of both longing and despair through me.

Our eyes met across the chaos, his filled with both fury and fear, and in that instant, I saw a lifetime of possibilities flash between us: touches that would never happen, words that would remain unspoken, a future we might have shared crumbling like ash in the wind.

"Go!" I tried to shout, but my voice was consumed by the roaring magic.

He shouldn't be here—couldn't be here. Not now when it was too late to turn back, when my sacrifice was already in motion.

Then the world went white, my vision filled with searing light as reality itself seemed to shatter and everything disappeared in a blinding flash of power that tore a scream from my throat.

The last thing I heard was the sound of my name—"ADARA!"—called out in a voice filled with desperation and something that might have been love, the raw emotion in those syllables cutting through the magical cacophony and piercing what remained of my heart.

As consciousness faded, I watched tendrils of phoenix fire weave through the portal's energy, gold and crimson dancing together like sunset on fire.

The corruption recoiled wherever my flame touched it, ancient enemies locked in eternal combat.

My physical form began to dissolve into ash, the familiar sensation of unmaking that preceded every rebirth I'd ever experienced.

But this time was different. This time the dissolution cut deeper, to the very core of my being.

For the first time in all my lives, I wasn't certain I would rise again.

The thought should have terrified me, but instead, a strange peace settled over what remained of my consciousness.

Sometimes, time was the greatest gift a phoenix could offer.