Smoke drifted across the room. The air was thick enough to get lost in. Hollis drove his shovel into ash not knowing if it was her or… what was left of her.

The thud of a shovel rang out in the soot-soaked air. He was digging out more than burnt carpet and wood. Every scoop unearthed another memory. The first laugh. The first kiss. The first time he believed he might finally survive love...

All proof that Vera lived. Every scoop also asked the same question: Was Hollis willing to let go of love forever and stop doing this to women?

His eyes were still glowing red with fire.

Flames still rolled off his chest.

With Hollis, grief often appears just as dangerous as love does.

He held a handful of her ashes before sealing the bag. After the ashes, what remained wasn’t just a body. It was a deep question he feared had no answer. Could love survive what fire could not? Some people spend their lives waiting on love that never arrives. Others find love all too easy. On a nearby shelf lay a small, framed picture of Vera. She looked the way he wanted to remember her.

Warm eyes.

Beautiful smile.

She had an energy to her... something hard to find after the world changed.

Hollis tucked her picture inside a small fireproof lock box. The box contained many pictures and almost too many memories. The lock box was passed down to him when he was very young. After the voice from the sky spoke, the earth shook, darkness filled the sky, and the moon turned blood red.

Some called It prophecy. Others called it damnation.

Legend says the voice from the sky spoke to Hollis deeming him chosen as a soul of fire yet, he has no recollection of it. His only reference of the source of his power is a passage torn from an ancient book.

It reads, “And the thunder spoke unto them, and those who listened carried the fire thereafter. The rest was sealed.”

Since then, Hollis has forever been Cinderbound. Desire. Lust. Passion. Those don’t ignite it. Only love summons the flames. And for him, love is the final illusion. At least, so he thought.

Outside the lights reflected against puddles of a town barely surviving. His boots echoed in the darkness that hid crumbling buildings. Light rain bounced off his trench coat as trails of heat distortion follow his lead.

The pupils of his eyes glowed while tiny ash particles drifted behind him. Hollis looked dangerous in a way that storms do. He knows he will never return. Even worse, he knows he’s leaving without Vera. What remained of her is what remained of all the others before her— Ash.

At times lately, she laughed differently. Sometimes she forgot conversations they had only shared the night before. Hollis blamed exhaustion. Other times he couldn’t make sense of it. Regardless, he could still hear the echo of her voice.

It was the kind of voice you didn’t mind hearing. The kind you missed if it weren’t there. She always carried the scent of something beautiful. It was like her perfume walked into a room before she did. She was more than just a pretty face.

Because of Vera, Hollis was no longer scared of love. For some reason, his flames wouldn’t consume her. Things had been going so well but then… something changed.

He knew it.

He felt it.

He clenched his jaw as a flicker of heat licked across his palm—brief and unmistakable.

He stepped away from her, keeping a safe distance. When Vera asked why he was pushing her away, he pleaded that he didn’t want to hurt her. She stepped closer. He stepped back, turning away… and that’s when it happened.

Passion replaced caution. His eyes blazed with fire as soon as their lips locked. Flames danced onto his chest like raging fire that refused to die. His hands pulled her in, unable to stop. Neither could turn away, no matter how dangerous the kiss.

Her skin cracked into ember lines as her core melted. Smoke filled the room, drifting away like a ghost with nowhere left to haunt.

His blinding inferno quietly extinguished, revealing her. Or what remained of her— chemistry that was catastrophic. She was a shell of her former self. A fossil holding time still until a breeze would sweep her away. Everything has a price, and for Hollis, love costs the most.

Hollis walked until the decaying districts of the gothic industrial city was a silhouette in the fog. He crossed iron bridges, passed old cathedrals, and trailed abandoned rail systems.

As he walked, something kept bothering him though— Vera wasn’t supposed to die.

As far as I he knew, she couldn’t.

Hollis’s love was deadly to everyone except her. Their fling began like all the others. Fast, exciting, and often ending quicker than it began. Behind the romance hid a coldness that was necessary. Love often appeared moments before disaster.

Women fell for Hollis easily. He could never tell why. He figured it was irony that so many women could love him but he couldn’t love them back. This brought a coldness about him. It’s what keeps women alive and what keeps him alone.

Maintaining this coldness was impossible with Vera.

She wouldn’t let him.

She had a secret.

Vera had been the only one impervious to Hollis’s fire. For the first time, he could love and hell’s chains of fire couldn’t stop him. The revelation came not only from her imperviousness to his power but also in the secret she kept— a torn passage that appeared to be from the same ancient book of that Hollis’s came from.

It read, “And the frost whispered unto her, and she who listened bore the ice thereafter. The rest was sealed.”

The power of her curse was learned early. She was abandoned by her parents for being too dangerous to love. Vera’s love froze her brother to death and nearly killed her father. From a young age, she had to raise herself. Loneliness grows loud when you’re forbidden to get close to anyone.

Vera believed love was impossible until she met the man who proved her wrong. Unique souls both running from love, no longer had to. Each carrying dangerous secrets that were now revealed.

Hollis never stayed anywhere long. He wouldn’t allow himself to. The less people got to know him, the safer they were. Since the world fell apart, it was easy for him to disappear. He could blend in with any town as it tried to rebuild itself.

This time when he left, he also left the shovel behind. There could be no more death. Not only do people not forgive him, but he doesn’t forgive himself. Eventually, his past will catch up with him.

The digging is over.

The love is over.

Solitude is his destiny.

Light rain dripped off the rooftop of the town’s only train station. The street light glowed a yellow hue under a nearby bench. Hollis sat alone as he looked at Vera’s picture. Some people never truly die if you can find a way to remember them, he thought.

The train whistle blew. He tucked her picture back in his lockbox and looked at his train ticket. He couldn’t remember where it would be taking him. All he knew was that it was one-way and he was running from his problems— like he always had.

Who knew love could be so complicated? A man forever doomed by it finally meets the one person who escaped the flames but later dies anyway. He grabbed the torn passage from the ancient book, reading it again.

Vera’s passage was similar.

Too similar.

If Hollis was chosen as a soul of fire, Vera was chosen as a soul of ice. He knew it. If only he had the ancient book, he could read what he did wrong.

“All aboard!” A voice rang out.

Hollis slowly paced his way to the train, seeing his reflection in a glass window.

Eyes glowing red with every memory.

Skin nearly bursting into flames.

He couldn’t be seen like that.

The train left without him. People in every passing train car watching Hollis glow with fire. Even thoughts of love make him dangerous. Once the train passed, someone appeared on the other side of the tracks.

But it couldn’t be.

It was impossible.

A she walks toward him, the shadows hid her face as though the lights dimmed just for her.

Vera. Alive. Smiling. Hollis's eyes ignite.

"Vera?"

No answer.

She keeps walking.

Hollis backs away.

"You'll die."

She smiles.

"I didn't the first time."

Ignoring any consequences, Hollis moved toward her like an inferno. His flames reached for her before he did. Vera met him halfway— ice cracking under his kiss. It didn’t harm her. The ancient passage was right: Her love can’t be burned.

Ice formed beneath Vera’s skin and snow melted above them. When their eyes opened, both ice and flames vanished.

“It’s really you then? But… how?” He said as his eyes glowed.

“Yes. Let me explain… Hollis, the woman from earlier… that wasn’t me. That was my twin sister.” She explained with something more than winter in her eyes.

The mystery about her past did more than mirror Hollis’s. She wasn’t just outcasted by her family, she was being hunted by them. They thought her to be a witch. They wanted her dead knowing she would kill others.

Vera’s twin sister had been looking for her for years. She used Hollis to get inside to Vera. She was there to kill Vera but got scorched instead. The pendant hanging from the shovel was the dead giveaway. Vera had found both the pendant and the shovel and brought it with her.

Hollis was easy to find. She knew he would skip town if he believed he killed again.

“I am the ice to your fire.” She said confidently adding, "Hollis. Love wasn't the curse. Believing you had to carry it alone was."

That’s when he knew found his soul mate. For the first time in his life... The fire doesn't win. Love does. Vera handed Hollis something. His shovel. "

“You won't need this for graves anymore." She said.

It was symbolic. The shovel represented burying love. Now... it can become the tool used to build a new life together. In the end, love can make ruins worth rebuilding and curses feel like a bad dream you’ll never have again.