Eighty-eighth Issue! Forbidden Flame
Welcome to April, a month of quiet ignition and restless bloom. The air softens, the light lingers, and the world begins to stretch toward warmth. Beneath the gentler days, something brighter and more dangerous stirs. Buds break open. Heat gathers. Not every flame is meant to burn freely.
Welcome to the eighty-eighth edition of the Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter.
This month’s theme is Forbidden Flame. These are stories of desire and defiance, of fire that flickers where it should not and burns where it is not welcome. Expect secret rituals and smouldering power, longing that refuses to be contained, and moments where temptation and consequence spark against each other.
Thank you to everyone who submitted this month. Your stories glowed in hidden places and refused to be extinguished. Are you ready to step into the fire?
Congratulations to both winners of the April theme: Manda Benson and Eric Fomley!
Ash Covenant by Manda Benson – A young woman enters a sacred rite that binds blood, faith, and power — only to discover the cost of devotion is far stranger than she imagined...
The Flames Remember, The Flames Forget by Eric Fomley – A grieving husband risks everything for one last moment with his lost love, only to discover the true cost of holding on...
This month's newsletter features:
- NEW Flame Tree Press, Romantic Fantasy and Myths, Gods & Immortals titles!
- Myth & Fiction Podcast
- Giveaway!
- Original Fantasy Flash Fiction #1: Ash Covenant by Manda Benson
- Original Fantasy Flash Fiction #2: The Flames Remember, The Flames Forget by Eric Fomley
- EXCLUSIVE Newsletter Subscribers Special Promotion
- Next Month’s Flash Fiction Theme
FLAME TREE PRESS | April Title
A Killing Breath by Faye Snowden
Raven Burns owes her life to the kind souls who looked after her while her father, unbeknownst to them, sowed a path of blood and bodies from California to Louisiana as one of the most notorious serial killers ever known, Floyd “Fire” Burns. When Raven was a girl, Floyd brutally murdered one of those kind souls, Miss Ruth Jefferson, when the woman made the fatal decision to open the door to him on a pitch-black 4th of July night. As Raven learned of her father’s crimes, she vowed to do everything in her power to put men like him away. Decades later Raven’s hunt for a serial killer terrorizing the town leads her right back to that 4th of July night, and a memory that will make her question how much Floyd’s evil has settled in her bones.
Of Love & Dragons
Dragons may be fierce but they are symbols of great power, and the bond between human and dragon, once forged, can never be broken. Or can it? Can romance deal a deathly trail of vows abandoned, or forgotten, and can realms beyond our time conjure tales of Dragon Lords, warrior princesses and great rivalries? Modern writers have sought to explore these questions and more, in a new anthology of enchanting romantic fantasy fiction. Strong-willed, independent leads navigate epic fantasy worlds and emotionally charged quests, featuring lyrical romance, and of course, majestic dragons.
A Breath of Time
Time – at once fleeting and eternal – is a tricksy, intangible dimension. A Breath of Time, part of Flame Tree's exciting new series of Romantic Fantasy titles, is a collection filled with stories of lost loves, love discovered, love unreachable unless Time itself is conquered; stories of time-bending, time traveling, time distorting; of alternate history and parallel timelines, of ancient forests returning to haunt the present and great adventures through dreams and timeless mountain tops, all with hearts beating to the rhythm of romance.
Odysseus
Odysseus is the cunning wanderer of the Trojan War, immortalised in The Odyssey. His journey features encounters with Polyphemus, the Sirens, and Scylla and Charybdis.
Though celebrated as a hero, his legacy is more complex, shaped by deception, violence, and moral ambiguity. This collection reexamines his myth, combining new stories with an introduction exploring his origins.
The Valkyries
The Valkyries are fierce warrior goddesses who choose the slain and carry them to Valhalla, serving Odin. Both divine and elusive, some are famed such as Brunhild, Gunnr, and Skuld, while others remain in shadow.
This collection reimagines their stories, blending ancient origins with new perspectives through tales of fate, war, sacrifice, and mythic power.
Original Fantasy Story #1
Ash Covenant
Amanda Benson
The Empire of Arcanador’s immolators came for Inika’s village. The men were massacred before the gates, their might spent in vain. Inika alone escaped: too old to be among the women and children the conquerors took as spoils and too quick for death on the end of a pike or by the all-devouring flames they loosed upon beam and thatch.
The village blazed all night, its ruins smouldering for days in the razing’s wake. Too weak to protect her kin, too strong to die by her enemy’s hand, Inika lingered silent and impotent in the emptiness and drifting smoke beneath the cover of the pine forest. Inheritance had bequeathed her a legend, the rumour of an unquenchable flame, capable of being wielded by one wily enough to parley with its ruler. When the fires at last dwindled, leaving blackened stone foundations the only memorial to all she had known, her resolve was made, and she gathered what little she had for the journey north.
Fire King Salazan marshalled his forces on the wild coast at the far side of the forest. His reign, like that of his father and grandfather before him, had been spent in an internecine war with the sea.
Inika sought an audience with him, wearing the only clothing she had, a plain bronze knife her only protector, and the storm clouds at her back her counsel.
“My grandfather once made a deal with you. I have come to ask the same.”
The Fire King looked upon Inika, no longer young, her face strong and honest, filled with an inviolate courage. And Inika beheld the Fire King, and though he did not blaze so bright as once he had, he still burnt with an incendiary majesty that seared the eye. Salazan held the power to avenge her.
“The deal your grandfather made was not with me, but with my grandfather, the old King Vulcan. And your grandfather reneged on it.”
“Then I will do what I must to make amends, although I have little left to bargain with. What did my grandfather promise?”
The Fire King smiled, though his manner was not cruel.
“He promised a union of fire and earth: the hand of his granddaughter to my grandfather’s grandson. A betrothal.”
Inika’s hope was lost. She could no more fulfil that promise than she could move the mountains. “Then my grandfather deceived you, for there can be no union between such things.”
The Fire King turned away from the infernal rift in the earth, whence his scorching soldiers marched out to battle.
Long Inika walked that desolate shore alone, she from whom all had been taken, she who had nothing more to lose. On the third day, she returned.
“Raise your army against Arcanador, and I will honour my grandfather’s bargain, though it means my own certain death.”
The Fire King laughed, though his voice was not unkind. He stretched out a lambent arm to encompass the shore below, where waves broke in a relentless onslaught against the flow of molten heat, the depths roiling, water seething against the flame that would not be quenched.
“I am already at war with the sea. I cannot make war on two fronts.”
Inika regarded the Fire King’s forces engaged in endless battle: waves vaporised, flames smothered, both forces exhausting themselves to maintain a line that could neither advance nor retreat.
“Aid me and I will fulfil my grandfather’s promise. When the union of earth and fire is complete, we will make peace with the sea.”
When the Fire King did not reply, Inika said, “I swear it on the ashes of my village!”
Salazan did not answer, and Inika went back to the shadows of the pines, her footfall silent on the deep carpet of fallen needles and cones.
When night fell, the Fire King’s armies burst forth from the mouth of the Arcanador mountain and marched down its slopes. The gates fell, and the streets ran red with molten rivers. Salazan’s forces assaulted the palace, the very walls eroding away in the firestorm. The Emperor and his immolators perished in the conflagration; lava devoured the city, and the foothills of Arcanador were smothered with ash.
The sun rose upon the wild coast where the sea still raged against the Fire King’s forces. When Inika emerged from the pines, Salazan told her, “It is done, but you can no more uphold the deal you have made than could your grandfather.”
Inika walked down towards the incoming tide and held up her hands. The sea would not be tamed, and it roared its defiance.
Salazan’s voice came to her hoarse over the crash of the waves. “There can be no peace between the fire and the sea! My father and my grandfather before me could reach no accord!”
Inika stepped into the swash, and the waves rushed in to greet her. The Fire King ran down the beach in pursuit, the sea recoiling from the heat where it reached his toes. Deeper into the sea Inika strode, and the Fire King went after her, the brine frothing and screaming in his tread. Wading up to her waist, the steam rose from Salazan in a great column, the sea churning against what it could not drown.
She put out her hand in the boiling water, reaching for his blistering grasp. Inika pulled him away from the shallows into tumultuous depths that threatened to engulf them both. As the luminous swell closed over their heads, Inika drew him close and gave herself to the Fire King’s scalding embrace. Earth and fire became one. The inferno was sated. The ocean lay quelled.
With a last burst of steam, a golden phoenix burst from the surface, followed by another. Spreading bright wings, they flew north, tracing the rocky line of the tranquil coast.
The union of fire and earth was complete; the sea was at peace.
Manda Benson is a scientist and writer from the Midlands of England who has previously worked in research and taught science at undergraduate and A-Level. Her short fiction has been published in various magazines and anthologies over the years, including Xanax Hamster, Primordial Magazine, and Aoife's Kiss. Manda’s new mystery novel, The Hoard, is forthcoming in 2026 from Sparsile Books. New editions of her previous novels are available from Tangentrine: www.tangentrine.com. Find her on BlueSky: @doctormandabenson
Original Fantasy Story #2
The Flames Remember, The Flames Forget
Eric Fomley
“When you enter the temple,” the priest said, “speak her name into the forbidden flames, but remember the cost, for it will burn like a fire in your mind.” He gently pushed me through the entry and shut the door behind me.
My heart was a caged hummingbird. The priest’s warnings were heavy on my thoughts. I stepped down cool marble steps with bare feet into an empty circular chamber with twelve torches lining the walls, belching green flame.
I ran my tongue over my crusty lips, suddenly unsure of my decision, of the validity of the priests of Orachi’s Temple.
“I want to see my wife, Anya,” I said to the empty room, trying to exude more confidence in my voice than I felt. There was a whirl of dust that spun like a dust devil. I shielded my eyes and squinted through the chaos, which was over as quickly as it began.
Anya. Alive in front of me and wearing the tunic she wore the last day I saw her. She was beautiful, a look of surprise on her face that probably matched my own.
I darted forward, wrapping my arms around her and kissing her deeply.
“My love,” I gasped. “Oh, my love.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” she squeezed out. “It has a cost.” She brushed her fingers on the side of my neck. The sensation sent a ticklish shiver down my spine.
“I needed to see you.”
“And to see me, you are willing to lose the final piece of me?” Her eyes became fierce and accusing.
I opened my mouth to protest, but the truth was in my being there. Already I felt the pressure in the back of my skull. The forbidden flames that gave me the privilege of seeing her also took from me. My memories trickled away, like a leak in my mind. One by one, they faded from fragments to echoes to nothingness.
“It’s not the same,” I choked out. “Living. Without you, I mean.”
Her eyes seemed to soften. She took my hands in hers. They were soft, delicate, warm.
“You’re not living without me.” She looked deeply into me. The torchlights glowed in her pupils. Eyes that had been a well of safety and comfort for me while she was alive. “I will always be in here,” she pressed a hand to my chest, “and in here,” she pressed a hand to the side of my face.
Tears swelled in my eyelids, blurring. There was so much weight on my chest that I didn’t think I’d ever breathe the same again.
She brushed my tears away.
“I miss you,” I said.
I could’ve stood there with her as long as I wished, holding her and feeling her skin on my skin. The memories would’ve continued to spill out of my mind until there was nothing left. Until I didn’t know who I was. But that was fine with me. I didn’t want to stop being with her. Even if it was the last thing I knew.
“Hey,” she said. “I miss you too, and I miss our daughter. But that’s why I need you to leave this place. The longer you’re here, the more of her you lose, too. She needs you.”
Daughter. The word cycled through my head. I saw Elle’s face. The same nose, the same eyes as Anya’s. A face that carried the daily reminder of what I lost.
“You need to leave; go to her.” There was urgency in her voice. A tremble.
I opened my mouth to speak, but despite the million moments I’d wished my wife was there to speak to since she’d been gone, I had nothing to say. I knew I was selfish for being here. I knew I was wrong. But I couldn’t urge my arms to let her go, my feet to walk away. How could I do that when she was my everything? A pang of guilt lacerated my chest. My mind was fuzzy, but even then, I wasn’t sure what I had and hadn’t lost to the flames.
“Elle is the last piece of me,” Anya whispered. “The memories you risk losing of me by being here, those are the only ways she’ll know who I was.”
I clenched my teeth and nodded. She was right. I’d been a fool.
“I love you,” I rasped.
She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. She pulled away. “And I will always love you. Promise me you won’t come back.”
It was like carving my heart out of my chest.
“Okay. I promise.” I had to force the words out.
She gave me a sad sort of smile before crumbling away like sand into nothingness.
I gasped out a sob and stared, longer than I should have, and debated my choice.
My daughter’s face, Anya’s face, slid into the front of my mind and started to blur.
I had to go.
I shuffled my unsteady feet for the door and slammed my fist on the hard oak. I needed to get back to my daughter. Even though she was barely old enough to walk, I planned to tell her all there was to tell about her mother.
Eric Fomley lives in a small town in Indiana with his wife and three children. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction, and Galaxy’s Edge Magazine. You can more of his stories on his website ericfomley.com or in his collections Futures and Cold Memory.
Our next edition of the newsletter will be SCI-FI themed, and we are looking for stories around the theme of:
Gravity Thieves
Please note that all stories submitted should be within the SCI-FI genre.
Terms and conditions for the submissions here: https://flametr.com/submissions.
Please send your 1,000-word story to the Newsletter Editor:
Leah Ratcliffe
flashfic@flametreepublishing.com
The deadline is 19th April 2026.
We look forward to reading your submissions. Happy writing!
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