Leyla
(Novel in Progress)
In a fractured near-future London, Leyla is everything the city fears — fiery, mixed-heritage, and dangerously alive. Her parents call her unstable; society calls her unclassifiable. But Leyla knows what she really is: a spark waiting to catch.
When she runs from their polished, suffocating world to the shadows by the railway line, she discovers a group of rebels who, like her, don’t fit into anyone’s definition of belonging. Among them, Leyla learns to wield the fire that burns within her — a power that feels both ancestral and forbidden.
But control is an illusion. When faced with circumstances beyond her control, grief, anger, and the pull of her darker self push Leyla beyond the point of return. When London itself erupts in flames, she must confront what she’s become — leader, destroyer, or something far more dangerous.
🔥 A visceral coming-of-age story about identity, power, and the intoxicating freedom of letting the world burn.
An Extract: Layla
Prologue
The memory was hazy, blurred at the edges like smoke winding into the sky, but Leyla remembered the smell vividly. The sharp, unmistakable scent of something beginning to burn. She had learned this early: fire had a life of its own, breathing, eating, consuming. She felt somethingelectric inside her chest, something beyond the thrill of risk, as she crouched by the edge of the golden field, fingers sticky with sweat, a match held carefully between her thumb and forefinger.
It was a sweltering summer in the English countryside, an unexpected family trip to “get away” and “relax.” There were only rolling fields, hedges, and stretches of dry grass, nothing like the vibrant energy of the city. Her parents had warned her about the dangers of fire, had given her strict instructions never to play with matches, kept them away like sharp scissors or bottles of medication.
But the box had been so small, just resting there on the edge of the picnic blanket. She could barely hear the low murmur of her parents talking as they sat in the grass, beside the river in the distance. All she could think about was the snap of the match head against the side of the box, the sharp scratch and rasp of its voice, the spark that bloomed into a tiny, hungry flame.
She blew on it gently, to keep it alive without letting it out of control, to flame out and die. The small flickers felt like secrets whispered just to her, dancing at her fingertips. She crouched lower, watching the flame catch on a single dry blade of grass.
The fire moved with a rhythm, a pulse, and she felt herself falling, drawn into it. She fed it, nurtured it, and it wasn’t long before the field was alive, flames licking up to the sky, their warmth wrapping around her in a cocoon. The world smelled of heat and char, and for the first time, she felt a strange sense of peace, like she’d found a companion in the flames.
Her parents’ shouts broke the trance. They pulled her away, yelling about danger, about recklessness, about what she could possibly have been thinking. Smothering her. But even as they dragged her back to the safety of their world, she looked over her shoulder at the haze hanging over the field, feeling as though she were leaving a piece of herself behind.
She learned many things that day—the thrill of control, the power in a single spark, and the mesmerizing beauty of the flames.
And she knew that wherever she went, she’d carry that scent of smoke inside her; smoldering, waiting.
Create Your Own Website With Webador