Cherreads

general

The Phoenix Bride of Eldrath : A Commoner's Forbidden Bond

"The fire chose wrong. It should have let you burn." Aria has spent twenty-three years as invisible as smoke—a laundress's daughter in the Ashen Outskirts, beautiful but useless in a kingdom where only bloodline and wealth count. She watches from the shadows as lords walk through the Sacred Phoenix Sanctum, waiting for the divine fire to choose the next queen. No commoner has ever been picked. No commoner has ever dared. Until the phoenix fire bursts from the altar and brands her heart with flames that don't burn—they awaken. The kingdom explodes in chaos. The priesthood declares her choosing a curse. Her own foster family, who raised her out of "charity," publicly denounces her as a fraud who twisted holy magic. Her betrothed—the merchant's son she loved for five years—reveals he only courted her to win favor with her hidden noble foster mother, then abandons her for Aria's own foster sister at the crown ceremony. Humiliated and alone, Aria learns the fire didn't just mark her as queen. It awoke something ancient: Ravenor, the fallen phoenix king imprisoned for three hundred years for disobeying the celestial order. Bound to her life force, he materializes as a devastatingly beautiful man with wings of black flame and eyes that hold centuries of rage. He should be her biggest friend. Instead, he's sure she's the prophecy's monster—the chosen one doomed to burn the world. As the corrupt High Priestess who controls phoenix power moves to eliminate Aria and re-imprison Ravenor, Aria uncovers a horrifying truth: the priesthood has been stealing phoenix essence for generations, and her selection wasn't divine favor—it was the phoenix fire's desperate rebellion against its captors. Now Aria must master the fire threatening to consume her from within, survive a palace full of killers, and decide whether to trust the beautiful fallen king who watches her like she's both salvation and doom. Because the priests didn't just lie about the phoenixes. They lied about what she is. And when the truth explodes, everyone will burn.
chindinmafx · 2.6k Views