Beneath the Ashes

"Beneath the Ashes"

A Tragic Love Story Set During the Ash War

(Book V in the Till Death and After Series)

I. The Musician and the Mercenary

He was a killer with a broken past.

She was a pianist who could barely remember the sound of peace.

Ren Calder fought for the Resistance—not because he believed in the cause, but because he had nothing left to lose. His hands had long forgotten what it felt like to hold without harm.

Mae Voss played music in abandoned churches, her piano keys worn thin. She never spoke of her family. Some said her sister had joined the Cult of the Hollow Bride. Others said Mae had once been a bride herself.

They met during a raid in a burning village—Ren had come to destroy the seedling tree, Mae had come to save it.

He pointed a gun at her. She offered him a song.

II. Smoke and Symphony

They should have been enemies.

But in the weeks that followed, Ren couldn’t stop hearing her melody—the one she played in that ruined church. He found her again, in the ashes of a chapel, tuning a cracked piano.

“You’re trying to make the world feel beautiful again,” he said.

“No,” she replied. “I’m trying to remember what it felt like before I lost her.”

Her sister, it turned out, had been one of the earliest brides—given to Lyra willingly. Mae had watched it happen. Watched her smile. Watched her body turn to bark.

“I play,” she said, “so I don’t forget the sound of her voice.”

Ren stayed that night. Then another.

And soon, they stopped talking about survival. They started speaking in touches, glances, soft words passed in firelight.

III. The Garden of Bone

But love could not grow untouched in a world fed by grief.

The Resistance discovered a new Hollow Garden—where Lyra’s roots had grown unchecked. Mae wanted to see it with her own eyes. Ren warned her.

Inside, they found the tree her sister had become. Still upright. Still whispering.

And it said Mae’s name.

Mae fell to her knees. Her hands bled against the bark. “She’s in there,” she cried. “She remembers me.”

But Ren knew the truth. The tree mimicked love. It was bait. That’s how Lyra grew—through hope turned inward.

Ren lit the fire.

Mae screamed.

IV. The Fall

Mae never forgave him.

She left in the night.

Ren searched for months, across ruin and smoke, always one town behind. But Lyra had learned Mae’s name. And Lyra didn’t take people anymore—she made offers.

Clara was gone. The Resistance fading.

And Mae, heart broken anew, accepted the Hollow Bride’s kiss.

Ren found her days later, standing beneath a tree of glass, her skin pale as moonlight, her hair filled with petals.

“Do you remember me?” he whispered.

She nodded.

Then took his hand—and her mouth opened wide.

V. The Ash and the Echo

Ren didn’t fight her.

He kissed her goodbye.

And as her roots pulled him under, he played the melody she once wrote on the piano. Each note hummed through the trees like a final prayer.

That song became legend.

Now, if you walk into a burned village, sometimes you’ll hear a piano playing through the wind. A sad, haunting piece.