An Oath of Cinders
Chained in the vaulted nave of the Sunfire Cathedral where she once knelt in devotion, Elara Thistlewood counts the dust motes falling through the stained light and waits for the fire. Condemned as a heretic for a faith she does not understand, she is to burn at dawn , until a cloaked figure offers her a choice that will tear the world open. Beyond the cathedral walls, a slow plague is hollowing out the villages. Aurelian knights ride in gleaming ranks to hold the line, but it is the Ironhall scouts and their watchful commander Rhyan Ironhall who first sense the deeper wrong: the Wraith King, sealed ages ago beneath the borderlands, is waking. A cloaked cult tends the breach with blood and borrowed scripture, and even Lord Cassian Vahl's loyal soldiers whisper that the heresy trials are a distraction from a war no blade can win. Elara's sister Marisel refuses to let her burn alone. Lady Mira Ironhall calls the council to a war footing, and border lords from both realms are summoned to set aside old feuds. But every alliance demands its price, and every oath is paid in cinders. To seal the Wraith King once more, Elara must surrender the name she was given, trust a heretic's prayer, and lead a combined host of Ironhall and Aurelian forces into the breach. The seal will hold , or the dark will rise, and the world will burn.