Ashes and Thieves

The kingdom of Ebonfall never knew true daylight. Even when the sun clawed its way across the horizon, the skies remained veiled in a permanent pall of ash. Shadows clung to the cobblestones, drifting like smoke from a fire that refused to die, and the people who lived within the city walls spoke in hushed tones, as though afraid the darkness would hear them.

To Cinder, it was suffocating—and yet, it was home.

Her bare feet padded softly across the stone corridor as she crept through the forgotten wing of the royal palace. The marble floors were cracked, the velvet drapes eaten by moths. No guards patrolled here; why would they? The nobles had abandoned this hall centuries ago when the great fire had gutted half the palace. But Cinder had learned long ago that in ruins, treasures hid where no one cared to look.

Her fingers, pale and ink-stained from her constant scribbles of visions, brushed the wall as she passed. The air was damp, carrying the scent of stone and something acrid—like burnt glass. Her skin prickled, warning her she shouldn’t linger. Visions pressed against the back of her eyes, like shadows behind frosted windows. If she closed them, she knew she’d see too much.

But she needed coin. She needed something to barter for herbs, for parchment, for the simple comforts that witches were denied. And so she searched among the palace’s forgotten skeleton.

Her cloak brushed against a shattered mirror, its shards glittering like stars spilled across the ground. She froze, breath catching. Glass was never just glass in Ebonfall. Each fragment pulsed faintly, as though echoing the beat of a bird’s wing.

The Glass Ravens, she thought with a shudder. Enchanted spies, fashioned by the stepmother herself. They watched. They remembered. They whispered secrets back to their mistress.

“Damn,” Cinder hissed under her breath, kneeling quickly. She pulled a strip of cloth from her satchel and wrapped it around her hand before scooping the shards into a pouch. Leaving them behind would be riskier. Better to hide them than let them fly home.

The silence pressed heavier as she worked. Somewhere in the palace, a clock tolled, the sound low and aching. Eleven. One hour until midnight, one hour until the kingdom’s curse would seize the night.

Her stomach tightened. She hated midnight. The world never ended there—but it always threatened to.

“Stealing from ghosts?”

The voice was low, velvet-smooth, and far too close.

Cinder’s body snapped taut. She spun, her cloak flaring, and her gaze collided with a figure leaning casually against the cracked archway behind her.

A man.

No—something more.

He was tall, his presence coiling through the shadows as though he belonged to them. His hair was black as spilled ink, his eyes a dark burnished gold that caught the faint torchlight. He wasn’t dressed like a guard. His attire was elegant but worn, the kind of richness that spoke of nobility who had long grown weary of showing it off.

Yet the dangerous curl of his lips, the way he watched her as though he could taste her heartbeat on his tongue—those were not noble.

Cinder’s pulse thundered. “Get out of my way.”

His smile deepened. “You’re trespassing.”

“And you’re spying.” She forced steel into her tone, though her insides twisted. His presence unsettled her—not because he was beautiful in a cruel way, but because something in her bones whispered that he wasn’t human.

He stepped forward. Shadows clung to him like loyal pets, wrapping around his boots, slithering across the floor. She backed away instinctively, her hand tightening on the strap of her satchel.

“You’ve been taking what isn’t yours,” he said softly, almost amused. “Broken glass, cursed trinkets… you don’t even know what you touch.”

“I know enough,” she spat back, though it was a lie. Half the relics she stole she only dared to keep for barter, never for use. Power always came with teeth.

His eyes glinted. “Do you?”

Visions surged without warning—flashes of fire, of blood, of this man’s face twisted into a monstrous snarl as wings unfurled behind him. She staggered, clutching her temple, a hiss of pain leaving her throat.

The man tilted his head. “You saw something, didn’t you?”

She froze. No one ever asked that. No one ever noticed the way her eyes clouded when visions struck. People dismissed her as strange, cursed, unlucky. But this stranger saw.

“Get out of my head,” she growled.

“I don’t need to be in your head to know what you are.” His voice dropped, heat curling through each word. “Witch.”

Her blood went cold.

No one spoke it aloud. Not if they valued their tongue.

She bared her teeth, clutching the pouch of glass shards tighter. “Say it again, and I’ll cut that smirk off your face.”

Instead of recoiling, he stepped closer. His shadow swallowed hers, his presence overwhelming. “You should be careful who you threaten in the dark. Sometimes the dark bites back.”

The torchlight flickered—then dimmed entirely, snuffed out as though a hand had closed over the flame. Only the faint glow of the cursed moon through the broken windows lit the hall. In that glow, for a heartbeat, she swore she saw his skin shift, black veins crawling across his neck, his eyes burning brighter than molten gold.

Then it was gone.

Cinder’s breath stuttered. She stumbled backward, forcing distance between them. “What are you?”

His smile sharpened. “Curious, little thief?”

She swallowed, throat dry. Her visions pressed harder, whispering of chains, of blood-stained thrones, of lips that burned against hers though they belonged to a monster. She shoved them away violently. Visions were not truth. They were curses, nothing more.

“I’m leaving,” she muttered, pushing past him.

But he caught her wrist. His touch was searing, his grip unyielding. She gasped as sparks shot up her arm, her heart slamming into her ribs. He leaned close, his lips brushing her ear.

“Run, if you like,” he whispered. “But midnight is coming. And when it does—you’ll wish you’d never stepped into my palace.”

He released her.

Cinder didn’t hesitate. She bolted down the corridor, her cloak whipping around her ankles, her satchel clutched tight.

But even as she fled, she knew the truth. His eyes haunted her already. And worse—her visions hadn’t lied.

He was a monster.

And monsters always found what they wanted.

Cinder didn’t stop running until her lungs burned and the ruined halls gave way to a grand, half-forgotten chamber. Moonlight spilled through the shattered ceiling in fractured beams, illuminating the dust like falling stars. She leaned against a column, pressing a trembling hand to her chest.

What was he?

Her fingers still tingled from his grip, a phantom fire trailing through her veins. She hated the way her body remembered him, the way his voice clung to her skin like smoke.

Monster, her visions had whispered. Demon. Destroyer.

And yet, when his eyes met hers, something inside her—something buried deep—had stirred, not with fear but with recognition.

She shook her head sharply, trying to banish the thought. She wasn’t here to unravel the secrets of beautiful monsters. She was here to survive.

Still, his warning lingered: Midnight is coming.

The toll of the palace clock echoed faintly again, twelve iron chimes creeping closer. Eleven-thirty. Time was already slipping away.

She forced herself to move, her boots crunching over broken glass. Each shard shimmered faintly, whispering fragments of voices. The Glass Ravens were waking. If they escaped the ground, Seraphine would know.

“Not tonight,” Cinder muttered, crushing one beneath her heel. The shard bled a faint, ink-black mist before dissolving into ash.

She hated how easily destruction came to her hands. Hated the reminder of what she was.

A witch.

A curse.

A thief of futures she never wanted.

Her satchel felt heavy now, the shards rattling like bones in a coffin. She should leave the palace altogether, vanish into the alleys of Ebonfall before the curse of midnight locked her in. But something—a tug in her gut, the whisper of her visions—held her back.

The shadows shifted.

“You run fast.”

Cinder spun, heart slamming.

He was there again. Kael.

No footsteps had marked his arrival. No door had opened, no air stirred. He simply was, as though the darkness itself had sculpted him into being.

Cinder clenched her jaw. “I told you to stay out of my way.”

“And I told you,” he said smoothly, stepping into a bar of moonlight, “that you shouldn’t steal from me.”

The words pricked her skin like needles. “From you? You’re no king.”

His eyes burned. “Not yet.”

For a breath, she faltered. There was something in the way he said it—calm, assured, inevitable. As though his rise to the throne of shadows wasn’t a possibility but a prophecy already fulfilled.

Her chest tightened. Damn her visions—they pressed again, images unfurling behind her eyes before she could resist. She saw him crowned in obsidian, his skin marked with runes of fire, his mouth stained with blood and hers.

She gasped, snapping herself free, clutching her temple.

Kael watched her with unnerving patience, tilting his head. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” she lied, forcing steel into her voice.

He smiled faintly, though it didn’t touch his eyes. “You’re terrible at lying.”

“I’ve survived this long, haven’t I?”

“And yet here you are, stealing scraps from a cursed palace.” His gaze flicked to her satchel. “Tell me, little witch—how much is your soul worth, that you’d sell fragments of it to the market for bread?”

Her throat tightened. Rage flared hot in her veins. He had no right to speak as though he understood her suffering, her hunger, her curse.

“I don’t owe you answers.”

“Perhaps not.” His steps carried him closer. She refused to retreat this time. The distance between them dwindled until she could feel the warmth radiating from him—wrong warmth, like embers that burned instead of soothed.

“I should kill you for what you’ve seen,” he murmured, voice low, intimate, dangerous. “But I don’t think I will.”

Her lips parted, a retort on her tongue. But before she could speak, the palace clock struck again—twelve, the first stroke of midnight.

The world froze.

The sound cut off mid-echo, the air itself solidifying. The drifting dust hung motionless in the moonlight. The wind outside the ruined ceiling ceased. Even her breath caught in her lungs like stone.

Her eyes widened in terror.

No, not here. Not again.

Midnight freeze.

The curse gripped her body, locking her in place, but her mind still screamed. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, yet she saw—oh, she saw.

Kael stood before her, but he was changing.

His golden eyes ignited, flames searing from within. Black horns curled from his temples, splitting through his hair. Veins of shadow carved across his arms as talons replaced his hands. His back arched, bones breaking, reshaping into vast, leathery wings.

He was the monster from her visions.

The demon prince of nightmares.

His gaze snapped to hers, molten and hungry, as though even in this frozen world, he could see her, could feel her terror. He leaned close, his monstrous face inches from hers.

And in the silence of the frozen midnight, his whisper coiled into her soul:

“You’re mine, Cinder.”

The final stroke of midnight tolled.

The world shuddered, thawing. Dust fell again. Air rushed into her lungs with a ragged gasp. The shadows recoiled, folding back into him until he stood once more as a man, though his eyes still glowed faintly.

Cinder staggered back, coughing, her body trembling from the freeze. She clutched her satchel like a lifeline.

Kael only smiled, sharp and satisfied.

“Now,” he said softly, as though nothing had happened, “do you still think I’m no king?”

Her heart hammered like a trapped bird. Her visions had been right. He was not only a prince—he was the monster destined to rule.

And she… she was cursed to walk straight into his fire.

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