AshesFallintoLight

In a land fractured by elemental extremes and ancient grudges, five kingdoms stand divided — each shaped by its climate, customs, and uneasy relationship with the monstrous frontier known only as the Wasteland.

For generations, the kingdoms of Solkar, Thal, Nordr, Virellia, and Alzhan have fought among themselves — over borders, trade, and pride — while the Wasteland's creeping horrors press ever closer. From this cursed land come the Oldspawn — beasts of myth and nightmare, whose hearts, when consumed, fuse with one’s own, birthing magic at a terrible cost. Power, after all, is never without sacrifice.

Evelyn — an orphan from a border outpost — is quiet, clever, and far more dangerous than she knows. When she survives a raid on her village and consumes a fractured core-heart, she becomes something new: a bearer of wild magic not bound to any kingdom's laws or customs. Her abilities are raw and unstable, and she draws the attention of those who would shape her into a weapon.
At her side is Torren, her childhood friend — steadfast, brave, and unknowingly the source of her first love. But while Evelyn’s path leads her deeper into the politics and power of the Five Realms, Torren’s takes him elsewhere: to duty, to transformation, and ultimately, to love beyond their bond.

Guiding Evelyn is the enigmatic scholar Vareth, a rogue archivist exiled from Alzhan’s great think-towers. Vareth believes Evelyn’s magic may be the key to ending the Wasteland’s expansion — or the cause of its rebirth. He teaches her the truth of the Oldspawn, of core-magic, and the First Fire, a forgotten power lost to time.

But in the depths of the Wasteland stirs something older than monsters. Once a god-emperor of a fallen sixth kingdom, now corrupted by centuries of core-consumption, the being known as The Hollow King has begun to move again. His twisted children — the Echoed, part-human, part-beast — are spreading across the borderlands.

And he wants Evelyn.

To survive, the kingdoms must unite. But can old enemies find common ground — when power is bonded in blood, bone, and the heartfire of beasts?

Heartfire of the Wastes

Evelyn dreamed of the bridge before they saw it.

Not as it was now—half-buried under ash and ruin—but as it had once stood: vast, gilded with alchemic runes, spanning a gorge carved by time and old magic. She stood at its center, and across from her came figures in silhouette—Warden-cloaked, core-lit, faces obscured by veils of fire and sorrow.

Each one whispered it as they passed through her.

She woke with those whispers still in her ears. Her skin prickled. Her core pulsed as if freshly stirred. The stars above were pale, veiled in smoke.

Torren slept nearby, his breaths shallow but even. His arm had stiffened, the wound from the beast refusing to close properly despite salves and binding. He never complained anymore. But Evelyn saw the way he winced when he thought she wasn't looking.

By midday, they reached the outer rise.

The Emberbridge wasn't truly a bridge anymore. Time and cataclysm had sundered it down the middle. What remained arced over a chasm of dark stone and trickling flame—a fissure known in the old maps as "The Divide of Teeth." Once a pilgrim's passage into Guild-claimed land, it now served as a dangerous, oft-avoided crossing.

Three hunter-markers lay near the ledge—stones shaped like claws, daubed with fading ash-ink.

A warning: Echoed roam. Turn back.

Torren stopped. "We should detour."

"No." Evelyn stepped forward. "We cross."

"You've seen what's below. You felt it when we passed the bone-pits."

"I know. But this is the way forward. I saw it in the dream."

He eyed her. "You're trusting dreams now?"

That, more than anything, silenced him.

The path across the remains of Emberbridge was narrow, its stone cracked and unstable. Some of it had been reinforced with scavenged iron struts. Someone had passed here recently. Evelyn saw fresher prints—a small party, possibly from the Dust Village or farther south.

The wind howled through the gap beneath, filled with sounds that didn't belong to wind.

Halfway across, the bridge sang.

It trembled with voices long buried.

Evelyn pressed a hand to the carved surface and closed her eyes. Runes pulsed dimly beneath the grime—ancient fire-glyphs shaped to hold emotion, not flame. She felt grief. Resolve. A memory of standing against overwhelming dark.

"Before the Guilds. Before Binding became a trade."

At the far end of the bridge, they found the offering site.

Three stone bowls. One blackened. One shattered. One empty, but humming faintly.

Evelyn approached and reached into her pack. She pulled out a single shard of fire-glass—the last from the Warden who'd died near Isenhold. A fragment of a memory. Of a choice.

Then—a whisper. Not from the bowl. Not from the runes.

A voice like cracked glass and silk:

Why do you call us forward, Child of No Line?"

Evelyn didn't flinch. "Because I need to know."

"And knowing unravels. Are you willing to burn?"

Torren stepped beside her. "What did you just do?"

"I opened a door," she said, slowly. "But I don't know where it leads."

From the chasm below came a low thrum.

And it remembered her name.

The Emberbridge Dream