Shades of Red

"My name is Ember. You know, like embers in a fire. At least that's what I like to think. I can only remember back 148 years ago, but I was named long before that.

That was just the last time I was reborn in flames. I am a phoenix."

Ember isn't just some bird. Her species has evolved, and in order to blend in with humans, they have developed the ability to change from phoenix form, to human form, along with the ability to choose when that human form stops aging. Ember only looks 17 years old, and she has for decades. But that wasn't the only thing history got wrong about phoenixes... They have rules. Strict ones. The biggest and most important rule was to never reveal your true identity to a human. That had only been done once, and the consequences were great. But the only other rule that even came close to that was that you could never know anything from your past life, since every 500 years they are reborn in flames. At every rebirth, you have to start over. Like, literally, you're forced to. And if you don't...

But Ember's past self had broken that rule. She had left herself a locket, with a picture of a boy inside. A boy Ember had never met. But if it was meaningful enough to her past self to break one of the most sacred rules of her kind, all for one locket, then it must be important. So she kept it. If it was ever found, it would be the end of her.

Everything changes when she meets that boy. The boy in the locket, who’s picture was taken over a hundred years ago. The boy that was so important that Ember’s past self broke one of her kind’s most sacred rules. The boy that was a simple human, yet he could be the most dangerous thing that ever happened to her.