Centuria Books · Fated by Fiction (Contemporary Romantasy: Novels)
Fated by Fiction (Contemporary Romantasy: Novels) — Read the First Chapter
She was born to write the story. He was sworn to end it.
Chapter 1: The Midnight Awakening
Ember had been waiting for sleep, curled beneath her favorite quilt with her grandmother’s handwritten book pressed against her chest. Twenty-five years old tomorrow, she thought, tracing the delicate illustration of an ancient forest on the cover page. Quarter of a century, and what did she have to show for it? A lighthouse apartment filled with books that weren’t hers, a job shelving other people’s stories, and a persistent emptiness that no fictional world had ever quite filled.
The soft glow of her bedside lamp cast long shadows across her bedroom walls. Outside her window, the rhythmic crash of waves against the Ravenmere shoreline usually lulled her to sleep, but tonight, her mind refused to quiet. Her fingers lingered on the worn spine of her grandmother’s book, feeling the subtle ridges where the binding had begun to fray from years of love.
“Just one more birthday alone,” she whispered to herself, the words hanging in the air like a half-forgotten promise.
She turned the first page, where Wren’s elegant script flowed like art across the parchment:
In the land where story-trees grow,
Where ink flows in rivers and dreams take root,
The lost may find themselves, though they know not what they seek…
Ember ran her fingertip along the words, remembering how her grandmother used to read them aloud, her voice warm and rich like honey tea on winter nights. There had always been something mysterious about the way Wren spoke of stories—as if they were living things, breathing and growing in some distant place she once called home.
“I wish you were here,” Ember murmured, pressing the book against her chest. “You’d know what to say about twenty-five feeling so… unfinished.”
Ember’s eyelids grew heavy as the clock on her nightstand approached midnight. The book felt unusually warm against her skin, and the golden patterns that often appeared on her arms when she was moved by a story began to spread, glowing brighter than she’d ever seen them. Alarmed, she tried to set the book aside, but her fingers wouldn’t release the pages.
The heat intensified, not painful but insistent, like a tide pulling her toward deep water. The golden marks—which she’d always dismissed as some strange, inherited skin condition—began to pulse with light, casting her bedroom in an amber glow that transformed the ordinary into something magical.
“What’s happening?” she whispered to the empty room.
The clock struck twelve. Each chime seemed to vibrate through her bones, resonating with the patterns on her skin until her entire body hummed with it. The illustration on the page—a forest clearing bathed in moonlight—began to shimmer. The drawn trees appeared to sway, the painted moon to rise higher in its paper sky.
With each toll of the clock, the illustration grew more vivid. The flat greens deepened, shadows stretched, and what had been mere ink now seemed to hold depth beyond the page. A breeze—impossible, since her window was closed—ruffled her copper hair, carrying the scent of pine and wild roses.
Panic seized her as she felt a tugging sensation behind her navel, like an invisible thread had connected her to something on the other side of the page. She tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat as the book’s pages seemed to expand, the illustration growing larger, surrounding her with impossible depth.
“No, wait—” Ember gasped as the pull became irresistible.
Her fingers dug into the sheets, seeking anchor, finding none. The walls of her bedroom began to blur, colors melting into one another like a painting left in the rain. The sound of the ocean faded, replaced by a rushing in her ears that reminded her of standing beneath a waterfall during a childhood vacation—the last trip before her parents disappeared.
The world tilted. Her bedroom spun away from her as she fell forward, through the page, through the ink and parchment, through something that felt like cool water and warm air simultaneously. Colors blurred around her—greens, blues, silvers all dancing past as she tumbled through nothingness.
Then, abruptly, solid ground. Ember landed on her hands and knees, the impact sending shock waves up her arms. Beneath her fingers was not the familiar softness of her bed, but cool, damp moss and rich earth. She inhaled sharply, filling her lungs with air that tasted nothing like her salt-laden Ravenmere apartment. This air was sweet with unfamiliar flowers, heavy with the scent of growing things and rain-soaked soil.
She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision as shapes around her gradually came into focus. The darkness wasn’t complete—there was light here, strange and soft, coming from the very ground beneath her palms.
“Am I dreaming?” she whispered, her voice small in the vastness that surrounded her. She pinched her arm hard enough to wince. The pain felt real. Too real.
She raised her head slowly, afraid of what she might see.
Towering trees surrounded her, their trunks wider than any she’d seen before, their canopies so high above that they disappeared into shadow. Yet darkness wasn’t the right word—because everything glowed. The moss beneath her fingers released a gentle blue light. Flowers scattered throughout the clearing shimmered with internal radiance in purples, pinks, and yellows. And the trees themselves had patterns etched into their bark—patterns that looked suspiciously like words, gleaming with golden script that shifted when she tried to read them.
“This isn’t possible,” Ember whispered, her voice strange in the perfect stillness of the forest.
She pressed her palm against the nearest tree trunk, half-expecting her hand to pass through it. Instead, she felt rough bark, warm and vibrating with what felt like a steady heartbeat. The sensation sent a flutter through her chest, intimate and unexpected.
The golden letters on the bark seemed to respond to her touch, rearranging themselves as if trying to form words she could understand. For a fleeting moment, she thought she saw her own name spelled out before the letters scattered again like startled fireflies.
She stood on shaking legs, noting with surprise that she still wore her sleep clothes—flannel pants and an oversized t-shirt with “All Good Books Are Adventures” emblazoned across the front. The irony wasn’t lost on her.
“Hello?” she called tentatively. “Is anyone there?”
The forest absorbed her words without echo. No birds called, no insects chirped. The only sound was her own breathing and the soft rustle of leaves far above as a gentle breeze stirred the canopy. The silence felt oddly comforting, like a tender embrace.
She wrapped her arms around herself, aware of how vulnerable she was—alone in a strange place with no phone, no shoes, not even a jacket against the cool night air. Yet alongside the fear rose something else—a wild sort of wonder that sharpened every sensation.
“Breathe,” she commanded herself, forcing air into lungs that had tightened with anticipation. “Just breathe.”
Turning slowly, Ember spotted something that stopped her short—a narrow path cutting through the trees, lined with the same glowing moss that carpeted the clearing. It seemed to beckon her forward, a ribbon of blue light stretching into the mysterious depths of the forest.
“This is ‘The Everwood Chronicles,’” she realized aloud, the words catching in her throat. “I’m inside Grandmother’s book.”
The recognition sent a wave of both terror and exhilaration through her. All her life, she’d longed to escape into the worlds she read about—and now, she had. Her fingers trembled as she pressed her palm to the warm cover, her skin tingling with awareness of this impossible place.
She patted her pockets, finding nothing except the hair tie she’d absentmindedly stuffed there before bed. Her phone, her keys, everything else from her reality was gone.
“Think, Ember,” she murmured to herself, trying to recall the story from “The Everwood Chronicles.” Her grandmother had read it to her countless times as a child, but it had been years since she’d heard the full tale. She remembered fragments: a forest where story-trees grew, each containing a different narrative; a lost princess trying to find her way home; a realm where imagination and reality flowed together like lovers’ whispers.
In the story, the princess had followed the glowing path to reach the Heart of the Forest, where the oldest story-tree grew.
Ember looked again at the blue-lit trail disappearing between the massive trunks. If she was truly inside the story, perhaps following its rules was her best chance of understanding what had happened—and how to get home.
With a deep breath, she took her first step onto the path, the moss seeming to brighten beneath her bare feet as if welcoming her touch. The moment her bare foot touched the glowing moss, the forest seemed to exhale around her. Brilliant lights flickered between distant trees—not quite fireflies, not quite stars, something wild and watchful. The breeze picked up, carrying whispers that hovered just beyond understanding, like a song half-remembered from childhood.
“Is someone there?” she called, her voice stronger than she felt. The whispers continued, neither answering nor ignoring her, simply existing alongside her presence.
As Ember moved deeper into the trees, they grew closer together, their branches dipping low enough for her fingertips to brush. Each leaf she touched brightened at her touch, releasing a scent like ancient books opened for the first time in centuries.
“You know what I am,” she whispered to the forest. “Don’t you?”
The golden patterns on her arms pulsed in response, casting warm light on the path ahead. For the first time in her life, those strange markings felt less like an oddity to hide and more like a beautiful secret finally ready to be told—something woven into her bones that she’d never fully understood until now.
Ember quickened her pace, wrapping her arms around herself against the growing chill. The path curved ahead, and as she rounded the bend, a soft gasp escaped her lips.
Before her stood something magical—a living structure rising organically from the forest floor. Not quite a house, more like a shelter formed by trees whose branches had been lovingly guided into room-like spaces. Windows glowed with warm amber light, and an actual wooden door—carved directly into the trunk of the largest tree—stood slightly ajar.
Smoke spiraled from a chimney crafted of stone and living wood, carrying the sweet scent of cinnamon mixed with something else—something like rain-dampened pages and forgotten dreams.
The cottage seemed born from the forest itself, a natural extension of the wilderness. Thick vines heavy with star-shaped flowers climbed the walls, blossoms opening and closing like drowsy eyes. The amber windows cast honey-gold puddles of light onto the moss-covered ground.
Ember approached with cautious steps. This wasn’t in the story as her grandmother had told it. The princess had encountered many wonders in the forest, but never a house.
“The stories Grandmother told…” she murmured. “Were they memories? Was she preparing me all along?”
Her pulse raced as she moved toward the door. Logic screamed at her to run, to find safety, to question everything—but something deeper, something woven into her very essence pulled her forward. The same feeling that had drawn her to certain books, the instinct that led her to become a librarian despite more practical options.
Just as she reached the doorstep, a voice floated from within—a voice that stopped her breath with its impossible familiarity.
“The birthday girl arrives at last. You certainly took your time getting here.”
The words flowed like music, notes of amusement mingled with relief and something more—a weariness that spoke of endless waiting.
Framed in the doorway, silhouetted against golden light, stood a woman with silver-streaked copper hair and eyes exactly like Ember’s own. She wore a dress that seemed woven from autumn leaves and midnight, and her smile held a thousand unspoken stories.
“Mother?” Ember whispered, the word catching painfully in her throat.
Hope, wild and desperate, surged through her veins. For a heartbeat, she was five years old again, waiting by the window for parents who never returned from their “quick errand.” The missing persons reports, the sympathetic police officers, the pitying neighbors—all flashed through her mind.
The woman’s smile softened. “No, sweet one. Though the resemblance is strong.” She stepped forward, and Ember could now see the differences—this woman was older, her features sharper, her presence more substantial than any human Ember had ever met. “I am Aria, Keeper of the First Story. And you, Ember Nightshade, have crossed the threshold just in time.”
Disappointment crashed through Ember, followed quickly by confusion. This stranger knew her name—her full name, which almost no one used. And there was something in her face, some ghost of familiarity that transcended coincidence.
“In time for what?” Ember found herself asking, even as her mind raced.
Aria’s expression grew serious. “To learn why your parents truly vanished, why your grandmother bound your magic—and why the fate of both our worlds depends on what you do next.”
The words hit Ember like physical blows. Parents. Magic. Two worlds. Each concept alone would have been enough to stagger her, but together they threatened to shatter her completely.
“My parents,” she repeated, barely audible. “You know what happened to them?”
“I know they didn’t abandon you, as you’ve feared all these years,” Aria said gently. “And I know they’ve been trying to find their way back to you.”
She held out a hand that glimmered with the same golden patterns that often appeared on Ember’s skin. “Come inside, Narrative-Weaver. The story-trees have been waiting for you since the day you were born.”
Ember hesitated, thoughts spinning wildly. This was madness—yet it felt more real than anything she’d experienced in twenty-five years. The golden patterns on her arms pulsed in response to the woman’s presence, like recognizing kin.
“Will you help me get home?” she asked, her voice steadier than expected.
Aria’s eyes softened. “First, we must determine where home truly is for someone with your gifts. The answer might surprise you.” She gestured again to the open door. “The night grows cold, and there’s much to discuss before dawn.”
Behind Aria, Ember caught glimpses of a room filled with books, scrolls, and maps that seemed to shift even as she looked at them. Something pulled at her, a sense of belonging she’d never felt before.
With one last look at the glowing forest behind her, Ember stepped forward and took the outstretched hand.
The moment their fingers touched, the golden patterns on both their skin flared brightly, forming identical constellations of light. A shock of recognition passed through Ember—not of the woman herself, but of the magic they shared, the story-binding power that had always lived dormant within her.
A warm sensation spread through her chest, like finding a place she belonged after a lifetime of drifting. For the first time, her differences didn’t feel like flaws but like precious gifts waiting to bloom.
“Welcome to the Everwood,” Aria said softly, leading her through the doorway. “The place where all stories begin.”
Chapter 2: A World Within Pages
“Every story needs a home,” Aria explained, noticing Ember’s wide-eyed fascination. She moved gracefully among floating tomes, her dress of autumn leaves and midnight rustling softly with each step. “Some travel through time in traditional bindings, others through whispers or songs, but all begin here in Everwood.”
Ember ran her fingertips along a row of leather-bound books resting on what appeared to be a living shelf—an actual branch extending from the wall, its surface smooth from centuries of tender use. The grain of the wood seemed to pulse beneath her touch, warm and alive, as if it recognized her presence. As if it welcomed her.