The Ember's Inheritance cover art

The Ember's Inheritance

You are the last to ignite the fire-wyrms' eggs, and the Great Winter is coming.

You are the last of the Emberkin, born with the rare gift to awaken fire-wyrms from their eggs. The Great Winter is days from crushing your valley, and the only chance to save your people lies in a single egg—hidden deep in the lair of a grieving mother wyrm who has killed every intruder for a decade. But she spared you once, long ago, and you don't know why. Now, you must face her again, to ask for what she guards with her life. A story of survival, sacrifice, and the impossible bond between a would-be thief and a creature of fire and grief.

The story begins

The wind had teeth tonight, gnawing through your woolen cloak as you climbed the switchback trail above the village. Snow hissed against the rocks, and the torch in your fist guttered and spat, its flame bending toward the mountain like a supplicant. Below, the valley lay dark, the shrine's cold glow a faint blue wound in the earth.

You'd felt it before the elders spoke—a pull in your blood, a warmth behind your sternum that had nothing to do with the fire in your hand. The egg. The last one. It was calling, and every step up this frozen slope answered.

Kael's voice came from behind you, sharp and breathless. "You're a fool, Emberkin. She'll burn you to ash before you get within a spear's throw."

You didn't turn. The torch flared, brightening as your anger spiked, and you heard Sera's softer footfalls as she caught up.

"She won't," you said, though the words tasted like a lie. "She's spared me once."

"Once," Kael repeated. "Mothers don't forget."

The cave mouth loomed ahead, dark as a swallowed scream. And from within, a sound—low, molten, the scrape of scales on stone.

What happens next is up to you.

Or read in the app

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

More like this