Forging Ash of the Beloved
Book One: Air and Ash and All We Lost
By Jesse Annette
Posted: Feb 19th, 2026
Length: approx. 2.8k words
The final trial
DAY TWENTY-ONE
Austra- The Duel
The final trial was a duel with a Commander. It was meant to break something open, to push initiates until truth surfaced, whether they wanted it to or not. For Austra and Daria, it felt less like a test and more like the natural end of a long three weeks.
Austra’s duel was last. The arena burned as she stepped into the sparring ring. Lava vents threw red-gold light across the stone. The crowd pressed close, restless with anticipation. Daria stepped into the ring and rolled her shoulders, leaving her knives sheathed. Hand-to-hand. Of course.
“Last chance to bow out,” Daria said.
Austra smiled. “I would, but it’d look like flirting.”
Daria didn’t smile. But her eyes warmed. “Ready?” Daria asked.
Austra swallowed. “Born ready.”
They collided. If Daria kept herself leashed everywhere else, combat stripped that restraint away. She fought like she was trying to burn something out of herself; strikes sharp, relentless, fueled by heat and fury. Fire crackled along her arms as she drove Austra back.
Austra answered with wind and momentum, twisting impact into motion, leaping and redirecting just out of reach. They moved like opposing forces locked in orbit, every clash a spark, every dodge a provocation.
Fists. Feet. Heat. Wind. Daria caught her mid-leap and slammed her down. Austra rolled free with a breathless laugh. Daria pinned her, lost her grip, grabbed again. Too even. Too matched.
Austra’s lungs burned. Her pulse thundered. And underneath it all ran something else, awareness sharpened to a knife’s edge. “You look good when you’re trying to murder me,” Austra panted.
“Focus,” Daria growled.
“On you? Easy.”
Daria’s gaze flicked to her mouth. “You infuriate me.”
Austra barely managed, “Is that… good?”
The next blow landed harder than necessary. Austra gasped and then laughed, which only made Daria angrier. They fought too close. Wrists caught. Legs tangled. Breath hot and shared. The rhythm tipped from combat toward something intimate and dangerous. Finally, Daria swept Austra’s legs and drove her flat, straddling her hips, forearm pinning her shoulder.
Austra froze. Heat curled low in her stomach. Daria hovered above her, breathing hard, hair loose, eyes burning. Austra’s heart hammered beneath Daria’s hand. Their faces were close enough to share breath. Everything slowed. Austra’s voice came out unguarded. “Hi.”
“You yield?” Daria asked, voice rough.
Slowly, carefully, Austra lifted one hand. Finger guns. A tiny wink. Daria made a broken sound. She caught Austra’s wrists above her head, hips pressed tight. Austra’s breath hitched. Daria noticed. She leaned down, lips brushing Austra’s jaw.
“You yield?” she growled low. Their faces hovered, panting.
Austra’s voice dropped. “Make me.”
Daria kissed her. It was fierce and uncontained, stealing air, collapsing the world down to heat and pressure and the shock of it. Fire met wind. Austra was lost the second she tasted her. It felt like falling into something inevitable as she arched into Daria, kissing back with everything she wasn’t allowed to say. It was fierce and hungry and desperately restrained. Austra gasped against her mouth, fingers tangling in Daria’s shirt, pulling her closer because she needed her closer. Wind sparked around them in tiny silver motes. Fire curled along Daria’s fingertips. Element meeting element. Heat meeting heat.
The rebels erupted with laughter, shock, and cheers. Daria pulled back abruptly, eyes wide and filled with shock at what she’d done. Both of them looked wrecked.
“Do it again?” Austra whispered.
Daria stood in a single, sharp motion and walked away. Austra lay in the dust, smiling like an idiot. She was so, so screwed.
Daria- The Kiss
Daria hated how easily Austra smiled under pressure. Hated how she moved through fire, like she belonged there. The kiss surprised her….that was the lie she told herself. But she knew it had been building for weeks: every wink, every near-touch, every moment Daria chose control instead of honesty. When Austra pointed her stupid finger gun and smiled up at her, something inside Daria finally snapped.
The taste of wind and heat lingered long after she pulled away. She wanted more, and she refused to let herself take it.
Austra- The Oath
The roar of voices hit her like a wave.
“She did it!”
“Did Daria punch her or kiss her?”
“Shut up!”
Arms wrapped around her with Varn and Mika, Daria’s squad members, on each side, shaking her like she’d won a siege.
“Princess!” Mika crowed. “You survived the beast herself!”
“Barely,” Varn added.
Austra laughed, breathless and dazed, ribs protesting. And then she was swept forward with the others toward the obsidian dais. She tried to look composed. She failed. Daria stood beside the High Priestess, carved from stone. No one else could tell that minutes ago Daria had pinned her to the ground and kissed her like she’d meant it.
Obsidian pillars framed the High Priestess, ancient, dangerous, and radiant with ritual fire. The initiates formed a semicircle. Austra took her place at the end, pulse still skidding.
“Try not to look so lovesick,” Varn muttered. “You’ll start a volcano.”
Austra elbowed him sharply, and the Priestess’s staff struck stone. Silence fell.
“Step forward,” the Priestess intoned, voice echoing through the cavern. One by one, the initiates approached, placing their palms against the glowing rebellion sigil carved into the obsidian slab. Flames rose, licking their hands without burning, sealing the ancient vow.
When Austra stepped forward, the hush deepened. As her hand met the sigil, the flame surged, hotter, higher, curling toward her breath, like it recognized her. She felt Daria’s gaze like a blade. Austra spoke the oath steadily as the fire spiraled higher than any before, gold at the base, red at the tips. Gasps rippled. Even the High Priestess watched more closely.
When the flame receded, the staff touched Austra’s brow. “In the fire of the Caldera,” the High Priestess intoned, “you rise from initiate to kin.” The staff hovered over Austra’s heart. “You are named among us as Oathsworn.”
The final word rang with ancient cadence, sealed by a surge of magic that flared warm and bright against Austra’s skin. The cavern erupted.
The word settled heavy and sharp. Oathsworn. One of them. And yet…
She dared a glance at Daria. Their eyes met, stern and guarded with something dangerous flickering beneath. Daria looked away.
Oathsworn. A title she had no right to. A vow she had already broken. A name that made her feel both lifted and cut open.
The crowd surged forward, grabbing shoulders, pulling the new Oathsworn into fierce embraces, and ushering them all toward the bonfire celebration waiting deeper in the caverns. Mika shouted, “Oathsworn!” at the top of his lungs, clapping Austra so hard on the back she nearly stumbled. Austra laughed, too breathless, too overwhelmed, too full of everything she couldn’t say.
“Come on! First round of Ember Ale is on me!” Mika hollered.
“No, it isn’t,” Rill, another one of Daria’s squadmates, grunted as she seized Mika by the collar. “I’m not letting you near alcohol after what happened last time.”
“It was one torch!” Mika protested.
“It was an entire row of torches.”
Austra laughed, actually laughed, and let them drag her deeper into the crowd. But even as she was swept away in cheers and ember ale, the title echoed in her mind like a brand: Oathsworn. And the only gaze she felt was Daria’s, lingering at the edge of the flames.
Daria- Oathsworn
Daria stood beside her mother, expression locked. She had trained for years to reveal nothing in public. But when Austra stepped forward, wind still swirling faintly around her like she carried the sky itself beneath her skin, Daria felt something twist low in her stomach.
She should not have noticed the faint bruise on Austra’s jaw. Should not have remembered the taste of her mouth. Should not have imagined kissing her again. Should not have stared at her lips as she spoke the oath. Daria tore her gaze away, furious at herself and swearing the kiss meant nothing. But when the fire surged hot and alive for Austra, Daria’s pulse stumbled.
Oathsworn. The title fit too well. The flames had risen for her like they knew her, and the rebels cheered her name as if she’d been born for this moment. When Austra looked at her across the crowd, bright and shaken, Daria felt her chest tighten. She told herself it meant nothing.
She didn’t believe it.
Austra- The Bonfire
Flames roared upward, sparks spiraling into the dark. Rebels played music on makeshift drums and volcanic glass chimes, the sound bright and wild. Someone pressed another drink into Austra’s hand. Someone else tugged her into a spinning circle of dancers. Heat and music and laughter swallowed her whole. And yet, she kept glancing across the firelit caverns searching for one face.
Her ribs ached from the duel. Her mouth still tingled from the kiss. The word Oathsworn rang in her skull like a bell struck too hard. She’d been kissed senseless by Daria Cross, pinned and breathless and completely undone, and then swept directly into the largest ceremony of her life. She’d barely had time to register the heat of Daria’s lips before the High Priestess had pressed a glowing staff to her chest and named her Oathsworn. The title still burned beneath her sternum like an ember that refused to cool.
Daria stood at the edge of the crowd, arms folded, doing an admirable job of pretending she wasn’t watching. Austra felt her gaze anyway: sharp, steady, like a brand against her skin. Each time Daria looked away, Austra felt a tug low in her chest. She was supposed to be celebrating. Supposed to be blending in. Supposed to be thinking about her mission.
Mika tried to pull her into a dance with Rill, shouting something cheerful over the music, but even surrounded by new friends and firelight, all Austra could think about was the fierce woman who had kissed her and then walked away like the ground hadn’t shifted beneath them both. She replayed the duel without meaning to: the way Daria moved, sharp, fluid, merciless; the moment she’d pinned Austra to the stone; the look in her eyes just before she leaned in. Gods, her stomach flipped just thinking about it.
Austra moved through the celebration half a second out of sync, like she’d missed a step and couldn’t quite recover. Every cheer of “Oathsworn!” landed deeper. Because she wasn’t just celebrating. She wasn’t just a recruit becoming kin. She was a spy. This was supposed to be the moment she slipped deeper into her mission, earning trust, rising through ranks, inching closer to secrets the Queendom wanted. She should have been thinking about her mother’s orders. About the next report. About leverage. Instead, she thought about Daria.
Daria, still standing at the edge of the firelight, arms crossed, pretending indifference as other commanders tried to draw her into the crowd. Daria, whose kiss still lingered on Austra’s lips. Daria, who had given her the best fight of her life and a title she had no right to wear. Austra’s heart twisted painfully.
Oathsworn. A vow she was already betraying. A name meant for someone who belonged.
Mika draped himself over her shoulder, laughing. Varn shoved a plate of spiced roots into her hands. Someone pressed another drink into her palm. The fire roared. The music swelled. Austra laughed light, hollow. And every time her eyes met Daria’s across the flames, the same dangerous truth surfaced: She didn’t want to think about the mission; She didn’t want to report anything back; She didn’t want to hurt these people.
She wanted Daria.
And Oathsworn…the word they chanted like praise…felt like both a blessing and a blade against her throat. She replayed it all deep into the night: The overlook, every spar, every tunnel patrol, every breath shared. Daria’s lips. Daria’s weight pinning her down. The hitch in her breath just before she pulled away. Austra kept touching her own mouth, dazed.
She wanted another kiss. Ten more. A hundred. She wanted Daria’s hands in her hair. Wanted to be pinned again, just not in a training ring.
“Hey. Airhead.” Varn elbowed her lightly. “Drink too much?”
Austra forced a grin. “Just thinking.”
“About the commander pinning you?”
Austra choked. “NO.”
Varn laughed so loudly half the cavern turned. Austra briefly considered launching herself into the nearest lava vent.
Daria- Unexpected
Daria should have left the bonfire the moment the new Oathsworn started cheering. Instead, she froze at the cavern’s edge, half-hidden in shadow, unable to tear her gaze away from Austra.
Austra moved through the celebration bright and flushed, still humming with combat and oathfire, like a spark riding the wind. Mika and Varn stuck close, shouting “Oathsworn!” every other breath.
And then Kess appeared. Tall. Flame-haired. Reckless. A shameless flirt with a reputation for seducing new Oathsworn before the sigil marks cooled. Daria watched as Kess slid up beside Austra and draped an arm over her shoulders with infuriating ease. Austra startled, laughed and tried to brush it off, but Kess leaned closer, too close, brushing a strand of silver hair behind her ear.
Heat flared in Daria’s chest. Not fire-magic heat. Jealousy. She clenched her fists behind her back. This was wrong. All of it. She had crossed a line in the duel. She had kissed a recruit, no, an Oathsworn now, one of her own. And now she was standing in the shadows watching someone else touch her like…like she cared. Like she had any claim. Like Austra belonged to her.
Daria inhaled sharply and forced her heartbeat to steady. Enough. She tore her gaze away, jaw set so tightly her teeth ached. The path forward was clear…had been clear from the moment her lips touched Austra’s. Distance. Professionalism. Avoidance. Austra was dangerous in too many ways: too quick with her smile, too fierce with her blades, too bright in oathfire, too distracting for someone who needed her head clear.
Daria stepped back into the tunnel’s darkness, letting the roar of the bonfire fade behind her. From now on, she would not watch Austra. She would not seek her out. She would not let herself waver again. She’d avoid Austra. Completely.
She turned and walked deeper into the tunnels, never seeing the moment Austra lifted her head across the firelight, searching.
Austra- Longing
Austra laughed politely as Kess leaned in again, but the sound rang thin in her own ears. The flirtation was bold, earning snickers from Mika and an eye-roll from Varn. Austra barely registered it. The moment Kess’s hand brushed her shoulder, her instincts pulled her gaze across the bonfire. The crowd blurred. The music dulled.
She searched for one person. Every face. Every shadow. Every flicker of flame. Nothing. Daria was gone. Something sank inside Austra, heavy and sudden, settling low beneath her ribs. Kess said something flirtatious. Austra smiled absently and stepped back, murmuring something about needing air. Mika shouted after her to grab another drink. Austra wandered out of the fire’s glow until the noise faded into distant echoes.
When she reached her bunk, quiet wrapped around her like a too-tight cloak. She sat on the edge of the thin mattress, exhaled shakily, and let her head fall into her hands.
Oathsworn. The title throbbed warm against her skin. And yet she felt more undone now than she had during the trial itself. As she lay back, exhausted and wired, memory slammed into her with brutal clarity: Daria’s weight pinning her down. Her breath hot against Austra’s neck. The fierce focus in her eyes just before she kissed her, like she’d been fighting the impulse for far too long.
Austra’s pulse skittered. Gods, she could still feel Daria’s hands…precise, controlled, right up until the moment she let go. The press of her hips. The heat of her mouth. The low, involuntary sound she’d made when the kiss broke.
Austra pressed a palm over her face and groaned softly. She’d been kissed exactly once by Daria Cross, and it had completely unraveled her. She wanted more. Wanted Daria’s fire warming her skin again.
But Daria wasn’t here. Wasn’t celebrating. Wasn’t watching her anymore. Austra curled onto her side, staring at the faint red glow of the ember sconces overhead, heart aching in too many directions at once. She didn’t know where Daria had gone. Didn’t know why the absence hurt worse than Kess flirting with her in the open.
All she knew was that if she closed her eyes, she could still feel Daria on top of her. And gods help her, she wanted that feeling back.
© 2026 Jesse Annette. All rights reserved.
Forging Ash of the Beloved 
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