The Ember and the Oath

Reyna Vask fights through the siege of Hollowfen with a cursed ember bound to her sternum, its pulse warning her of every breach in the shattered walls. With Corporal Mennick at her side and Lieutenant Yara Dell holding the inner line, she swears an oath to carry the fire through the siege or die trying, but the ember burns hotter with every life it costs, and Captain Drey of the Black Bridge is already moving to take it from her. As the outer barricades fall and the third wall gives way like a mountain clearing its throat, Reyna learns the siege is only the surface of a deeper war: the silver-masked Captain Verrin hunts her across the smoke, the Wraith of the Seventh feeds on the dying, and the Bound Spirit follows her like a shadow she cannot outrun. When Scout Falle returns with word that the Child Lenne and the Prisoner Eda are still alive inside the burning city, Reyna must choose between breaking her oath to save them or keeping it and letting them burn. Lord Caelen Mhart's masked regent waits beyond the walls, and the ember knows what she carries before she does. The question is no longer whether she survives the siege, but whether anything worth saving will survive with her.