Ember and Eclipse
Every dusk, Maren Ashvale coaxes a wavering thread of orange flame between the wardstones that ring her village, the last fire-line still burning in Ashvale, and the only thing holding back the creeping rot that seeps in from the east. Her sister Lirien watches her shoulders, and the village murmurs on behind them, certain the Ashvale sisters will keep the dark at bay as their mothers did. That certainty shatters when Forge-Lord Torven arrives from the capital with a sealed summons and a warning he will only speak to Maren alone: the king is dying, and the Steward Lord Grieve rules in his shadow. Worse, the corruption gnawing at Ashvale's roots is not a local sickness. It is threaded through every wardstone from the Northern coast to the throne, and only a keeper of the old fire-line can follow it to its source. Maren must leave the village that depends on her hands, dragging Lirien toward a court where King Malachai Souldark's name is whispered like a curse. Trust no one at court. Trust no ember that burns without smoke. If she fails, Ashvale falls, and with it, every fire-ward still standing between the kingdom and an eclipse that will not end.