Chapter 2: Ava of the Ash Road

🔥 Tagline:

“Sometimes, the road meant to break you leads you to your true self.”

⚔️ Hook Line:

Exiled and forgotten, Ava walks the cursed Ash Road—where ancient whispers awaken the dusk within her.

Ava had expected silence.

Instead, the Ash Road sang to her.

Not with melody or kindness—but with voices like cracked glass and rusted wind. Each gust carried echoes—of girls who had walked this path before her. The air shimmered with sorrow. But beneath it, something pulsed.

Not death.

Magic.

The snow no longer stung. It seemed to part slightly around her steps, as if unsure whether to freeze her or let her pass.

She walked until her legs throbbed, until her breath was ragged, until the last stone spire of Eloria disappeared behind her.

Then the road changed.

From snow to ash.

Literally—gray powder beneath her feet. Cold and soft, but dry. The trees here had no bark. Just blackened limbs like skeletal arms reaching for a sky that had long forgotten how to shine.

Ava crouched beside one and pressed her palm to its trunk. A faint spark passed between them.

The flame in her pocket flickered.

Yes, she still carried it. That strange, violet ember from the previous night. She had wrapped it in a torn corner of her robe and tucked it into a stitched fold. It had not gone out.

It was breathing.

So was she.

---

By the third day, hunger crept in. Not just in her belly, but in her soul.

She had no food, no fire, no compass. Her mother’s face haunted her like a ghost behind every branch. She remembered how tightly she held her hand. How she didn’t scream when Ava was sentenced. Just held her tighter, as if through touch she could anchor her daughter to the world.

Now Ava drifted. Alone. Lost.

The Ash Road forked ahead.

The right path led down into mist. The left climbed over a ridge.

She had no signs. No answers.

So she followed the ember.

It pulsed once, faintly, as she stepped left.

---

The ridge offered a cruel kind of view: miles of ruin.

Charred forests. Crumbled towers. Stone altars cracked in half. This wasn’t just wilderness. It was history erased.

She sat beside a broken archway and opened her hand.

The violet flame curled outward. No heat. No pain. Just a slow, serpentine motion, like it was… tasting the air.

And then she heard it.

A voice. Low. Male. Weak.

“…help…”

Ava’s heart jumped.

She followed the sound through a jagged line of ruins until she saw him:

A boy—maybe fifteen—half-buried under a collapsed stone, a dark wound smoldering on his shoulder. Smoke, not blood, rose from it.

His eyes fluttered open. “Who—who are you?”

She knelt beside him. “Ava.”

His gaze shifted. “The flame girl?”

Her breath caught. “You know me?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Eloria thinks you cursed them. Maybe you did. The flame blinked black… and they started hunting everyone like me.”

“Like you?”

He looked down at his wound. “Touched by dusk.”

---

🌑 Mini-Climax (End of Chapter 2):

Ava meets her first ally—Kier, a wounded boy whose body bears a burning mark of dusk. The Ash Road was supposed to lead her to death, but instead, it brings her to the first of many who carry the same forbidden spark. Together, they are no longer alone.

"What do YOU think will happen next?"

"Don’t forget to share your guess in the comments!"

---

🔥 Next Chapter: 3. The Boy with the Burning Wound

One-line Explanation:

As Ava helps Kier recover, she learns the truth behind the dusk mark, the rebellion it represents, and the brutal force sent to extinguish it.

---

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***