FOrging Ash of the Beloved
Book One: Air and Ash and All We Lost
By Jesse Annette
Posted: July 2nd, 2026
Approx. Length: 3.1k words
Content Note: 1x mild
Austra- Overwhelming
Austra sat alone in the squad barracks, elbows braced on her knees, the sending stone warm in her palm like a heartbeat she did not want to acknowledge. Her thumb worried the edge of the Crosswinds token the squad had given her months ago for her one-year “Crosswinds-iversary,” as Mika had dubbed it. The wood was worn smooth now. Proof of belonging. Proof of time. She glanced at the token resting on her night stand and almost lost her composure before she squashed down the panic starting to rise.
The rest of the Crosswinds were only a few caverns away, finalizing plans for the Priestess’s meeting with the Torch Collective. Austra was supposed to be with them. Instead, she lost time staring at the stone as if it might blink first. She tried to start the report. Torch Collective activity increasing… No, too true. Priestess pursuing diplomatic contact opportunity… No, too dangerous in the wrong ears. Crosswinds preparing support… Not false. Not safe.
Her breath hitched. She dragged a hand down her face. How many weeks had she kept this spinning? How many lies stacked onto half-truths stacked onto omissions?
She had been able to do this once. When the Crosswinds were just a mission. When Daria was just a commander. Before the first kiss in tunnel dust. Before a year of waking tangled together. Before the squad looked at her like she belonged. Before she started believing it herself. Now every lie felt like a blade she had to decide where to place.
Footsteps stopped behind her. She subtly tucked the stone under the mattress as she kept her gaze on the floor. She knew Daria’s steps the way she knew how to breathe.
“You missed strategy,” Daria said quietly, striding in front of her.
Austra swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’ll catch up.” She forced herself to look at her. Daria stood with her arms crossed, eyes narrowed. Hurt. Austra hated that more than anything.
“You’ve been off,” Daria said. “For days.”
Austra’s stomach tightened.
Daria stepped closer, voice dropping. “And before you tell me you’re tired, don’t. I know you. Something is wrong.”
Austra attempted a weak laugh. “Everything’s wrong, Daria. The Priestess is meeting anarchists. The Collective is spiraling. The Queen’s forces are shifting. Half of Pyronous is one bad spark from burning.”
“Austra.” Her name landed like a hand on her chest. A warning. A plea. Daria crouched in front of her so their eyes were level. “Tell me.”
Gods, she wanted to. She wanted to empty herself into Daria’s hands. The reports. The lies. The betrayal. The guilt. The truth burning through her ribs. If she told Daria, she would lose her. Austra looked at Daria’s face, golden eyes, sharp mouth, the worry line she had put there, and something inside her locked shut.
“I’m just… overwhelmed.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Daria’s hand settled on Austra’s knee. Steady. Anchoring. Impossible to ignore. “You flinch when I say Torch Collective. You jump when my mother sends for me. You stare at maps like they’re killing you. You’re afraid of something.”
Austra’s chest cracked. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “Just… don’t worry.”
Daria leaned in until their foreheads nearly touched. “I don’t want excuses,” Daria said. “I want you.”
The words shattered what little control Austra had left. She almost said it…I’m a spy…I’ve lied to you…I’ve lied to all of you… I love you.
Instead, she folded forward and pressed her face into Daria’s shoulder. Her body shook. Daria went still, then wrapped her arms around her. That kindness hurt worse than anger ever could.
“Talk to me,” Daria whispered.
“I can’t,” Austra breathed. “Not yet.”
Daria made a soft, wounded sound. She did not push. She held Austra tighter. After a long moment, Daria pulled back just enough to brush her thumb along Austra’s cheek.
Austra’s hands trembled. And she did the only thing she still knew how to do. She kissed her. Slow at first. Then desperate. Clinging. Daria kissed her back immediately, frustrated, hungry, needing answers she was not getting and taking what she could instead.
Austra grabbed Daria’s collar to pull her up, mouths meeting with something close to grief. They stumbled together, Austra pushing Daria against the barracks wall, heat braided with fear, hands desperately exploring under clothes.
Austra swallowed the mantra ringing in her mind…I love you, I love you, I love you…and kissed Daria harder, drove her knee deeper between Daria’s thighs, hoping pressure could replace confession. Because telling the truth would destroy them. And not telling it was already doing the same.
When they finally broke apart, breathless, Daria’s hands cupping Austra’s face, she murmured against her lips, “You’re going to tell me eventually.”
Austra closed her eyes. “Not tonight.”
Daria kissed her again, softer. Tired. Wanting. “Then let’s go to bed,” she whispered. “Please.”
Austra followed her down the dim tunnels because she no longer remembered how not to. The sending stone remained cold and silent beneath the mattress she never slept on. Austra did not look back.
She pinned Daria in empty, shadowy corridors on their walk to her quarters, kissing her fiercely to keep her mind from wandering back into panic. Daria kept tugging her forward with a growing fire in her eyes. They lost all restraint when the door shut behind them.
When they lay tangled in Daria’s sheets later, Daria murmured against her neck, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Dangerous,” Austra said weakly.
Daria smacked her arm lightly. “When I’m with you,” Daria said, “everything feels lighter.”
Austra stilled.
“You turn the world into something I can survive.” A pause. A breath. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Austra’s throat burned. She kissed Daria’s forehead. “I’m here,” she breathed.
Daria- Devestation
She had pushed contacting the rumored rising leadership within the Torch Collective as far out as she could; they just needed one last quiet scouting run before sending their intermediary toward the Collective’s likely camp. They were supposed to be invisible on the run. But when they were about halfway along their route to the Collective’s main entry tunnel, the air shifted. Daria felt it before she saw it. Lanternlight crested the far cavern ridge. Too bright. Too focused. Too many. Seven soldiers wearing Zephyrian uniforms appeared just within line of sight of the Crosswinds. Searching. Her stomach dropped.
“Positions,” Daria whispered.
The Crosswinds moved instantly. Darvin and Rill swept left. Varn took high ground. Mika vanished behind a rock spur. Austra pressed into the stone beside Daria, breath steady. For a moment, it almost worked. Then a lantern lifted. Light washed across rock…across Mika. His breath hitched. A shout split the cavern.
“Fall back!”
Arcane force detonated against the ridge. Stone exploded. Mika cried out. Everything became noise.
“Austra, left! Darvin, cover right! Varn, suppressive fire!”
Steel rang. Bolts thudded. Austra cut down the first soldier in a blur of motion, wind and blade seamless. Darvin and Rill took another in tight, brutal coordination. Varn’s bolt punched through a throat. Daria held center, parried, drove her dagger into a shoulder, twisted, dropped her opponent.
They were winning. Then…“Commander!”
Daria turned. Mika dodged one arrow. A second struck him square in the ribs. Deep. Too deep.
“Mika!” Austra screamed.
Mika collapsed. Austra caught him and dragged him behind cover as bolts slammed into stone.
“No, no, no…stay with me!”
Darvin saw. Rill froze. Varn fired blindly, shouting.
Austra knelt, hands slick with blood. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Mika blinked. “Hey… Princess…Don’t cry…”
Daria hit the ground beside them. “Mika. Breathe. Just breathe.”
He tried. Once. Twice. Then nothing.
Austra made a small, broken sound that ripped through Daria’s chest. Something inside Daria went utterly cold. She stood. The remaining soldiers began to retreat. Daria did not let them. She moved through them like a force of nature. No thought. No memory. Only the moment the last body hit the ground.
Silence fell, the kind that sinks into bone. Varn dropped to his knees. Darvin stared. Rill sobbed over Mika. Austra had not moved. She was drenched in blood, hands locked around Mika’s. Daria knelt and gently eased Mika’s hand from Austra’s grip.
“Austra.”
“I should’ve protected him.”
“No.” Daria swallowed. “This wasn’t your fault.”
Austra did not believe her.
“We’re taking him home,” Daria said.
Austra looked up. Blaming herself. Daria felt something tear. Together, they lifted Mika. No one argued.
As they walked, Austra whispered, hollow, “He died in my arms.”
Daria squeezed her hand. I can’t lose you too. Not to battle. Not to my mother. Not to whatever you’re carrying alone. And the thought landed, quiet and lethal: Something inside Austra is breaking. And Daria did not know how to stop it.
Austra- Hallow
She did not remember how they got Mika’s body back to their medic caverns. She remembered blood. Dark. Sticky. Drying on her hands. She remembered Daria’s voice, shredded, hoarse, still issuing orders even as it kept threatening to break. She remembered Darvin shaking from the violence of holding himself together.
But the walk itself? The weight of Mika’s body. The murmured condolences. The medic’s bowed head. All of it was gone. What remained was certainty. She had failed him. Failed the squad. Failed Daria.
She should have seen the Zephyrian scouting shift coming. She should have questioned the Crosswinds route. She should have warned Daria not to push forward. She should have…gods, she should have said something clearer in her reports. Instead, she had softened edges. Blurred urgency. Twisted narrative. Bought time. What if one of those softened threads had opened the space Mika died inside?
By the time she realized she was staring at her hands, she had scrubbed them raw in the squad washroom basin. Her knuckles were scraped. Skin flushed and stinging. She still saw blood. Still felt weight. Still tasted iron.
A hand settled on her shoulder. Careful. Hesitant. Daria. Austra did not look up.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Daria whispered.
Austra swallowed hard. “You don’t know that.”
Daria stepped closer until her chest brushed Austra’s back. Her hands slid down Austra’s arms, slow, unsteady, as if she were anchoring herself by touch.
“I led the push,” Daria said. “Not you.”
Austra shook her head violently. “But I could’ve… I should’ve…”
“You couldn’t have known.”
But she could have. Maybe not the moment, or the arrow, but the risk. The widening pattern. The unstable pressure. Mika was gone. The guilt bit deep.
“I should’ve protected him,” Austra whispered. “He trusted me.”
“I should have too,” Daria said.
No accusation. Just truth. Austra’s breath collapsed. Daria wrapped her arms around her from behind, pressing their foreheads to the cool stone wall. They both shook, Austra with guilt, Daria with grief she refused to show anywhere else.
“It hurts,” Austra whispered.
“I know,” Daria murmured. “I can’t…” Her voice caught. “I can’t lose another one.”
Austra turned slowly. Daria’s eyes were molten. Rimmed red. There was dried blood on her collar she had not noticed yet. Austra cupped Daria’s jaw with trembling fingers.
“I’m so sorry.”
Daria leaned into the touch without thinking. “You dragged him back,” Daria said. “That matters.”
Austra sobbed softly. “I should have done more.”
“We all should have,” Daria whispered. “But we can’t change it.”
They held each other like wreckage in open water. Neither steady. Neither letting go. The guilt crushed in on Austra’s lungs. Daria held her tighter, believing Austra was only grieving. Not knowing Austra was also silently confessing into her shoulder: This is my fault.
Finally, Daria whispered, “Stay with me tonight.”
Austra nodded. “Always.” She meant it.
And that was the worst part. Because she was still lying. Still hiding a web of lethal truths. Still breaking. But tonight she let herself be held by the woman she loved. Tonight she let herself grieve.
Daria- Suffocating
Mika’s death settled over the Crosswinds like ash. Soft at first. Then suffocating. Austra shut down. Warmth vanished. Jokes thinned. Wind around her dulled, like something inside had folded inward and gone quiet. It terrified Daria more than screaming ever could have.
Austra avoided sleep. Avoided stillness. Avoided everyone. Most painfully…She avoided Daria. When Daria approached, Austra smiled wrong. Joked wrong.
“Look,” Austra said once. “Still me.” Two shaky finger guns. A tiny wink.
Daria felt something inside her fracture. She hated the gesture. It was not teasing or flirting. It was a mask. A brittle, desperate one. Like Austra was drowning and pretending she wasn’t.
For three days after Mika died, the GPR caverns dimmed their lanterns. No drills. No scouting runs. No reports stacked on Daria’s desk. The mountain held still.
The Crosswinds gathered deep in the lava vents with the Forge Keeper. Heat rolled through the chamber in slow breaths, heavy with iron and ash. Mika’s body lay on the central dais, wrapped and motionless, too quiet for someone who had once filled every space he entered. They stood in a circle around him, heads bowed, close enough that Daria could feel the others without looking: Varn’s rigid tension, Rill’s trembling stillness, Darvin’s quiet solidity at her back, Austra’s hallow breathing next to her.
The Forge Keeper began the arcane rite. Low chants threaded through the hiss of the lava vent as Mika was reduced to ash. Each Crosswind whispered their goodbyes. Daria whispered nothing. She didn’t trust her voice not to fracture.
When the Keeper opened the small lava seam and drew out the dagger molds, the chant shifted, older, sharper. One by one, the Crosswinds stepped forward. Each placed a handful of Mika’s ash into a mold. When it was Daria’s turn, the weight in her palm felt wrong, too light, too final. She poured the ash in anyway. The Keeper lowered each filled mold into the lava as glowing tendrils of magic spread over the casts, over the Keeper’s hands, over the Crosswinds themselves. The mountain listened.
Once the ash-forged daggers cooled, the Keeper ushered them into the memorial caverns, where the full GPR waited in silence. Daria burned Mika’s name into the ceremonial Obsidian Wall, each line carved with heat and precision. Varn etched the Crosswinds mark beside it, his hands shaking but steady enough to finish. Rill brought candles and set them at the base of the Wall. Darvin stood behind them like a barrier against the world. Austra hovered in the back of the squad, her eyes haunted. Each of the remaining Crosswinds received an ash-forged dagger to honor Mika’s memory.
She couldn’t stop replaying it…Mika falling, Austra screaming his name, soldiers firing anyway. The memory looped without mercy, sharp as broken stone, and Daria stood among the living with a blade in her hand and ash in her lungs, already feeling something harden inside her where grief refused to stay soft.
On the fourth morning, the Priestess sent for her.
“I honor your loss,” the Priestess said. “But the mountain does not pause.”
Grief was a luxury. Orders resumed. Zephyra was erratic. The Collective was bold. A meeting with Collective leadership was still required. Daria nodded reluctantly.
Drills restarted. Nothing fit. Varn moved like a machine. Rill barely spoke. Darvin kept glancing toward doorways. And Austra…she trained until bruised. Volunteered for dangerous routes. Stayed awake over maps until candles died. Carried guilt like skin.
On the sixth night, Daria found her pacing the barracks.
“Stop,” Daria said.
Austra froze.
“You’re not sleeping.”
“Neither are you.”
“You’re carrying guilt that isn’t yours.”
“You don’t know that.”
Daria touched her cheek. “I know you did everything you could.”
Austra flinched. “I should’ve done more.”
“You always think that.”
“And you always think you shouldn’t need anyone,” Austra said.
Something broke. They folded into each other.
“I can’t lose anyone else,” Daria whispered.
“You won’t lose me.”
“You don’t know that.”
Austra kissed her like she needed Daria to believe it. Like she needed the promise to be real. They clung to each other against the cavern wall, grief sliding into something desperate and necessary. Just to survive the night.
Later, in bed, Daria whispered, “Whatever it is… you can tell me.”
Austra kissed her instead. Silence. Daria lay awake with Austra’s head on her chest. This wasn’t normal grief. It was specific. Directional. Heavy with intention. And the realization crept in, cold and slow: Austra was hiding something. Something big. And Daria did not know if she was more afraid of what it was…or of losing Austra before she ever learned it.
By morning, Austra walked into drills smiling. Eyes dimmer. Jokes sharper. Wind thinner. Daria made a decision. She would not let Austra break alone. Even if she had to chase her into her walls. Through her lies. Or into the fire itself.
Austra- Dread
Grief lived in her bones now. Not the sharp, shattering kind she had expected. This grief was quieter. Heavier. Like a stone lodged beneath her ribs, dragging everything else down with it. Austra moved through the next few days like she was wearing someone else’s body. She trained. She scouted. She sat through squad updates with Darvin and Daria.
And every time someone said Mika’s name, something inside her twisted so hard she thought she might tear in half. I should’ve saved him. I should have warned them earlier. I should have reported differently. Every thought landed like a blade. And beneath all of it lay the darker truth she refused to look at head-on: I didn’t tell the Queendom everything. She had shaped things. Softened edges. Blurred urgency. Hidden details to protect Daria. To protect the Crosswinds. And if even one blurred line had nudged the timing of that patrol…Austra’s breath hitched. She couldn’t finish the thought.
The first report she sent her mother after Mika’s death was hollow. She sat in a narrow alcove near the old lavaflow vents, the sending-stone warm in her palm, waiting for language to assemble itself into something she could survive saying. Nothing came.
Finally, she carved out: Movement less predictable. Collective activity unknown. No danger to upper leadership. No clear escalation timeline. She omitted everything else. The vulnerable caverns. The patrol timing. The fracture widening between Daria and the Priestess. The way Daria clung to her at night like she was afraid the world would tear them apart.
The stone pulsed once. Expectant. Austra closed her eyes. “That’s all I have.”
It wasn’t. She knew it. The stone knew it. The message vanished anyway.
When she returned to her quarters, Daria’s quarters, really, the squad sat around the dim firepit, voices low, frayed at the edges. Rill stared into the flames. Varn’s jaw worked constantly, like he was grinding his teeth to dust. Darvin rearranged the same pile of gear for the seventh time.
Austra sat with them. No one asked her to speak. No one asked her to be okay. They let her exist. Then Daria passed behind her. Iron-straight spine. The faintest hitch in her step. Austra felt herself tilt toward her without meaning to. Daria’s fingers brushed Austra’s shoulder. Barely there. No one else noticed. The warmth split through Austra like a faultline.
Later, Daria murmured, “Stay.”
Austra had never considered leaving. They fell into each other with an urgency neither of them named. Raw. Needy. A wordless certainty that they were both one breath away from shattering. Daria kissed her like she was afraid Austra might vanish. Austra held Daria like she already carried the weight of losing her.
When they finally slowed, tangled in damp sheets and shaking limbs, Austra pressed her face into Daria’s throat. “I can’t lose you,” she whispered before she could stop herself.
Daria’s hand slid into her hair, gentle enough to hurt. “You won’t.”
But Austra knew better. She could lose Daria to the Priestess. To the Collective’s chaos. To the war accelerating toward them. To the truth.
If she knew what I am. Where I came from. Who I report to. Daria would never look at her like this again.
Daria slept. Austra did not. She watched the minute movements of Daria’s face. The twitch of lashes. The scar along her jaw. The faint crease between her brows that never fully eased. She loved her. She hadn’t said it. She couldn’t. The truth pressed inside her like magma under stone. She couldn’t tell the truth. She couldn’t keep lying. She couldn’t keep the Queendom satisfied. She couldn’t fail Daria again.
She couldn’t hold all of it. Something had to give. And for the first time, Austra truly understood: That something might be her. She tucked her forehead beneath Daria’s chin and held on. Memorizing warmth. Memorizing weight. The last good thing she knew how to keep.
© 2026 Jesse Annette. All rights reserved.
Forging Ash of the Beloved 
Leave a comment