Ashes on the Earth (Stones of Fire Book 1) Read online

  Ashes on the Earth

  Sarah Ashwood

  Contents

  Author’s Inspiration

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  The Stones of Fire Series

  About the Author

  Works by Sarah Ashwood

  Ashes on the Earth

  Copyright © 2020 Sarah Ashwood

  Editing by Olivia Cornwell Editing Services

  Proofreading by Fantasy Proofs

  Cover art by Oliviaprodesign.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Excepting brief review quotes, this book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the copyright holder. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, real events, locations, or organizations is purely coincidental.

  All Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version.

  Created with Vellum

  Author’s Inspiration

  “Therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.” —Ezekiel 28:18

  “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.” —Ezekiel 28: 14

  Author’s Note

  This series contains creatures from myth, folklore, and legend that I researched and gathered from around the world. I’ve tried in most cases to be as faithful to the prevailing mythology as possible. However, as you probably know, stories diverge and evolve over time, so there isn’t always a general consensus of opinion. Furthermore, this is fantasy, which I felt gave me room to take a few liberties with the creatures I’ve showcased. I hope any variations from standard lore won’t detract from your enjoyment of this series.

  Chapter One

  “C’mon, c’mon.”

  Standing at the intersection beside Cook’s Children Medical Center in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, I tapped my toe impatiently. It had been a long day. I was a third year nursing student, we’d been doing clinicals, and I’d just gotten off a twelve hour shift. Today, I’d cleaned up human waste, been vomited on and screamed at by patients, and reamed out by the RN I was shadowing.

  I couldn’t wait for this day to be over. I wanted to go home, take off these scrubs, hop in the shower, and then enjoy one of Mom’s home cooked dinners. Unfortunately, the light at the intersection seemed to be taking forever.

  “It’s like the whole universe is conspiring against me today,” I grumbled.

  If I didn’t make it to my car within the next few minutes and get out of the parking lot, I’d be stuck in unending lines of traffic on the way home. I desperately wanted to avoid that.

  A small crowd had gathered behind me, comprised of other hospital employees getting off work and visitors leaving the hospital. Next to me, a sharply dressed young woman a few years older than me held the hand of a little boy about four years old. I noticed them—the woman, anyway—with a touch of envy. She looked classy in a careless sort of way, with her jeans, tank, ¾ sleeve jacket, and ballet flats. Her haircut had perfect beachy waves, her jewelry was bold, and her eyebrows were on point.

  As a busy nursing student, I just didn’t have the time or energy for fashion. My wispy blonde hair was usually pulled back in a sloppy braid or ponytail. My glasses tended to slide down my nose, and my favorite jacket looked like what it was: cheap. I wished I had the innate style, the money, and the time to look as pretty as the woman next to me, but envy wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I switched my attention to the child she was with.

  I was the oldest of three with two younger brothers, ages twelve and six. I was used to children, especially boys, and liked them. My upbringing had persuaded me to enter nursing school after high school and work towards becoming a pediatric nurse. At this point, I still lived at home to save money until I graduated, got a job, and could start paying off student loans.

  The kid next to me was tugging on his mom’s hand—I assumed it was his mom, anyway. She was looking down at her cell phone, sheathed in a pretty pink case studded with diamonds. Her perfectly manicured thumb nail clicked on the screen as she scrolled up, ignoring the little boy. He swayed towards me, bored, and our eyes met.

  “Hi,” I said, flashing him a smile.

  “Hi. What’s your name?” he asked.

  “It’s Ellie. What’s yours?”

  “Jackson.”

  “That’s a nice name. I like it.”

  He frowned quizzically, studying my scrubs. “Are you a doctor?”

  “Nope. But I am training to be a nurse.”

  “What’s a nurse?”

  “Leave her alone, Jackson,” murmured his mom without glancing up from her phone.

  “It’s okay. He’s not bothering me,” I said. To the little boy, Jackson, I explained, “A nurse is sort of like a doctor’s assistant. They help the doctor out.”

  “Oh.” He opened his mouth as if to ask something else, then a flash of fur and color in the middle of the street caught his attention. “Look, Amy, a squirrel!”

  “That’s nic—” she started to say, disinterested, but even as she spoke Jackson jerked on her arm and broke free. “Hey!” she shouted, finally looking up.

  My heart froze in my chest. It all happened in slow motion. Jackson jerked free. Amy looked up. Jackson darted into the street. Right into the path of an oncoming bus. The bus was slowing for the light, which was changing so pedestrians could cross, but it wasn’t slowing fast enough. It was going to hit the kid.

  I didn’t stop to think. Sheer instinct propelled me. Before Amy could move, even as the gasps and screams of onlookers engulfed me, I dove for the little boy. I didn’t try to grab him and pull him back. There wasn’t time for that. I just took a running leap and dove, shoving him forward. He fell onto the street and burst into tears. I fell onto the street, hearing the grinding and squealing of brakes. Jackson was out of the way. My legs weren’t. There was a blur of color and sound. Gritting my teeth, my eyes squeezed shut, I waited to feel pain explode across my ankles and calves as bus tires crushed them.

  Nothing happened.

  For a second, it was like the world had gone silent or I had gone deaf. Then, slowly, awareness returned. Noise. Chaos. Confusion. People running. Feet pounding the area around me. I opened my eyes, my hand patting around for my glasses. I found them and slipped them on. There was a tiny crack in the corner of the right lens, but that didn’t matter. I was okay. The tire had stopped centimeters from my legs. My legs were actually under the front of the bus, right next to the tire, but I hadn’t been hit. I glanced over at the l
ittle boy. Amy had darted past me and dropped down to gather him in her arms.

  “Jackson, Jackson, are you okay? Are you hurt?” she babbled. Her face had gone stark white. Her cell phone was dropped, forgotten. “Are you okay? What were you thinking? You can’t do that! You can’t run away from Miss Amy! You almost got killed. Oh, your dad’s gonna kill me!”

  I caught all that despite Jackson’s wails. When I’d shoved him forward, he’d scraped his elbows on the asphalt. They were bleeding a little, which gave him cause to scream his head off.

  “Hush, honey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Amy was saying. Her hand trembled as she ran it over his head. She looked at me, tears in her eyes. It was the weirdest thing, but for a split-second I swear I thought her eyes looked…gold. Like a shining bright gold. Then I blinked, and the illusion disappeared.

  “Thank you,” she mouthed. “Thank you.”

  I tried to reply, but my vocal chords were frozen. I didn’t even realize how scared I was, that I was in shock, until legs and feet surrounded me. People were kneeling around me, talking all at once.

  “Did you get hit?”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Her legs—watch out for her legs!”

  A man in a uniform knelt next to me, the bus driver, peering under the bus.

  “Her legs are fine, barely,” he announced. His eyes were wide, and there was a pallor beneath his dark skin. “That was really brave, young lady. Really brave. I thought for sure I was gonna hit that kid, then you came flyin’ out of nowhere—”

  He swallowed hard and shook his head.

  “Wow,” he finished. “You’re a hero.”

  At last I found my voice. “I’m not a hero,” I said. My voice trembled and I laughed to cover the fact that I was suddenly so overwhelmed with emotions that I was about to cry. “I just like kids.”

  At this, the bus driver laughed. The people around us laughed. The tension was broken. A male voice said, “Let’s get her out.”

  Several pairs of hands closed on me, including the bus driver. I clung to his arms as they drew me out from under the front of the bus and got me on my feet. Maybe I was more frightened than I knew. Once I was standing, my knees buckled. The bus driver grabbed me, supporting me.

  “You sure you’re okay? Here comes a wheelchair. Hey! Over here!” he hollered, waving his arm.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m just scared.”

  I tried to brush off the care and concern, but nobody was listening. In the background, I heard Amy speaking over Jackson’s wails, insisting on the behalf of her employers that I should be checked out. I wasn’t sure what that meant about her employers. I knew I was fine and just wanted to go home, but in the chaos and confusion nobody was paying attention to me, so eventually I quit trying to fight it. In short order, I was in one of the curtained off areas of the ER and Jackson was in the next. Someone had retrieved my purse and phone, which I’d dropped during my rescue attempt, and brought them to me. I typed out a text to both my parents.

  Got involved in something while leaving the hospital. Everything’s fine, but I’m going to be late. Don’t wait on me for dinner. Love you.

  That done, I settled in for the long haul until an ER physician could come see me. Machines hummed and beeped and blinked in the background as my vitals were monitored and recorded. Leaning my head back against the thin pillow, I shut my eyes. Instantly, I was overwhelmed with images of Jackson darting into the street and the bus headed straight for him, me diving for the kid and the bus almost hitting me instead…

  “Hey.”

  A woman’s soft voice broke into my train of thought. I opened my eyes. There stood Amy. She looked a little less cool and fashionable now, with her makeup smeared from crying and her face still pale. Gosh. If she looked that bad, I must’ve looked horrible.

  “Hey,” I said, pushing myself up on the bed. “Come in. How’s Jackson?”

  She stepped into the room, letting the curtain fall closed behind her.

  “He’s okay. He’s finally calmed down. Our driver is with him, letting him play on his phone. I wanted to come see you for a second and thank you.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Oh, yes I do.” She seated herself in the chair next to my bed. “I was too busy scrolling Instagram and not paying enough attention to Jackson. If you hadn’t done what you did, he’d be…”

  She stopped and tears filled her eyes.

  “Hey, it’s alright. It was an accident,” I said, trying to ease the situation. “All’s well that ends well. Nobody got hurt.”

  “Yeah, thanks to you,” she said with a broken chuckle. Rising, she pulled a tissue from the box on the counter which she used to dab at her watery eyes, then her nose. “Anyway,” she went on, resuming her seat, “I just want you to know that I’ll never forget this. Jackson’s parents won’t, either. I already called and told them what happened. Mr. Costas said I was right to insist on you getting checked out, and to tell you not to worry about your hospital bill or your glasses or anything. It will all be taken care of. He also said to expect a follow up from him in a few days. He wants to thank you personally.”

  “Mr. Costas? So you’re not Jackson’s mom?”

  That made me remember her referring to herself as Miss Amy, which now made sense.

  “Me? Oh no, no,” Amy laughed. “I’m his nanny. We were here at the hospital to visit my cousin’s kid for a few minutes who’d just had surgery. Not a place I’d normally bring Jackson, but I didn’t want to wait for my day off. I figured we’d only be here a little while. No big deal, right? Guess you never can tell what’s going to happen.”

  “No, you sure can’t.” I had to agree with her on that.

  “Look,” I said, “please tell your boss thank you for me, but he really doesn’t have to—”

  “Stop. Stop right there.” Amy held up a hand. “You saved his son’s life. I can promise you he will take this very seriously. There’s nothing more important to Mr. Costas than family. You risked your life to save Jackson’s. Mr. Costas will treat you like family now. You are family now.”

  Chapter Two

  You are family now.

  I didn’t think too much about it when Amy said that, but she wasn’t kidding.

  I took the next day off from classes and clinicals. Mom insisted. She was really shaken when I finally got home that night and told my family what had happened. Shaken, and more than a little aggravated I hadn’t called to tell her and Dad what had actually happened.

  “I can’t believe you drove yourself home!” she’d snapped. “What was the hospital thinking?”

  “They checked me out, Mom. I was fine,” I said. “Believe me, if I hadn’t been okay, they wouldn’t have turned me loose.”

  I think she half-guilted me into taking the next day off to rest and recover because she was so piqued that I hadn’t called. Whatever. Mom was Mom, and there was no arguing with her. I spent the day at home, slobbing it up in faded yoga pants and a baggy t-shirt. I helped my younger brothers with their schoolwork, ate popcorn while watching sitcoms on Netflix, and did some light housecleaning. Honestly, it was nice to have a break.

  By the next day, I was completely fine and knew it. I went back to school, back to work at the hospital, and life got back into the swing of things.

  Or, it was supposed to.

  The invitation stopped all that.

  Three days after the accident, I arrived home from the hospital.

  “Hey, I’m home!” I called. Shrugging out of my jacket, I hung it on a peg behind the door and kicked my shoes off.

  “Hey, honey, how was your day?” Mom asked, appearing around the corner from the kitchen into the living room. Without giving me the chance to answer, she went on, “Something came for you today.”

  She scooped up a package and an envelope from the antique side table, rescued from a flea market, and handed both to me.

  “What’s this?” I asked, flipping the package over to see the return ad
dress. “I didn’t order anything.”

  “Open it and see.”

  I shot her a glance. Mom was practically bursting with curiosity.

  “I bet it killed you to wait and not open this, didn’t it?” I teased her.

  She swatted me lightly on the arm. “Oh, hush. It did not.”

  I arched a brow.

  “Okay, maybe it did. Go on, open it.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  She followed me as I moved into the living room and dropped onto the couch. I tore into the package first. Inside was a hard case. A hard leather case. Rich, expensive looking. I flipped it open. Nestled on a bed of soft black velvet was a pair of glasses. A little bit oversized, just like mine, with gold wire frames. Whereas my original pair, cracked during my dive to save Jackson Costas, had come from an optometrist at the front of a mega retail chain store, these were designer glasses. I recognized the name printed on the inside of the lid. And it was nothing I’d ever, ever dreamed of owning.

  “Oh my goodness, Ellie,” Mom said softly. Seated next to me on the couch, she reached out to touch the glasses almost reverently with a fingertip. “Those are beautiful.”

  “They are,” I agreed, staring down at them. A weird feeling curdled in my stomach. “Amy, the little boy’s nanny, she said her boss was going to cover my hospital bill and my glasses, but I didn’t expect anything like this. I sure didn’t expect it so soon. How’d they know my prescription anyway?”