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

The morning rose brittle and sharp, all edges and ash-colored light. Evelyn stood on the ridge above the ruined shrine, her cloak stiff with soot, her pulse echoing faintly with the vow she had spoken hours earlier. Below, the landscape twisted with the wreckage of some ancient calamity—half-buried spires, bones of creatures too large to name, and the shimmer of something coming fast through the Wastes.

Not metaphor, not legend—flame, coiled like serpents beneath the hooves of beasts that looked like horses born in a forge. Six riders, wrapped in red-black armor shaped like char, their faces hidden behind visors of molten glass. Heat rippled off them in waves, though the air remained cold.

Torren swore softly. "Embercallers."

Evelyn's heart clenched. She'd only heard of them in whispers. A nomadic order. Flame-bound. Neither Guild nor free, answerable to no banner save their own. Some called them servants of a dead god. Others, peacekeepers of the old pacts. All agreed on one thing:

If they rode to you, it was never by accident.

The lead rider dismounted with a strange grace, the flame beneath her mount vanishing in a hiss. She removed her helm.

Her face was scarred, her eyes ember-orange and unblinking. Not natural. Not human. "You carry the old fire," she said.

"Say your name," the woman pressed, voice like coals cracking.

"That is what you were. Not what you are."

Behind her, another rider pulled a banner from his saddle—tattered, but marked with a glyph Evelyn felt burn in her spine. A match to the one that had formed in her Binding.

Torren moved beside her. "You know that sign?"

"I am that sign," Evelyn said, voice barely above a whisper.

The lead Embercaller nodded once. "Then ride. You are called."

"Where the heartfire was born. Where it was broken. And where it will burn again."

The other riders turned in unison, their mounts snarling low as the ground hissed beneath their hooves. The sky began to change—clouds parting in unnatural spirals, a glow pulsing on the horizon.

Evelyn looked at Torren. He gave a tense nod.

She mounted behind the scar-eyed woman. The moment she touched the beast's charred flank, heat surged through her bones—not painful, not pleasant. Just truth. Just fire.

And Evelyn, ash-bound oath bearer, rode with them into the deep Waste, toward the place where the sky sang and the earth still wept molten names.

The Embercallers Ride