Chapter 11
Thorne
The Ember Vein Mining Camp, The Broken Plains, Nightfall
The Ember Vein rises from the rust-red ground like a jagged scar, veined with molten light and pulsing with the heartbeat of the realm.
Steam rises in slow curls.
Magic hisses beneath the crust.
Sparks scatter in the wind like whispers of a thousand untold dangers.
The moment the coach slows, the air shifts.
Heat rolls up from the cracked stone ground, thick with soot and iron and the acrid bite of ember ash.
Smoke from distant forge fires curls lazily into the sky, staining the clouds in smears of burnt orange and black.
We’ve arrived at The Ember Vein encampment.
My soldiers are already assembled.
The Fire-Bound stand at attention, armor etched in flame-script, helmets tucked under arms.
The miners—their gray-bronze skin stained with soot and glory, their black eyes sunken but determined—cluster near the mouth of the great ravine where the Vein glows dimly beneath the crust of scorched earth.
The camp is tense.
Wary.
Ready for another attack.
But my focus isn’t on the camp.
It isn’t on the ore or the new threat we’ve come to investigate.
Not even on the monstrous creaking of the forge cranes or the whine of wind cutting through glass-bone spires lining the chasm.
No.
It’s on her.
She steps down from the coach without hesitation, her cloak billowing around her like a living flame, catching every ember of light.
My Shula.
The mortal woman with a spine forged of something stronger than black steel. Gods, she’s not just brave—she’s unshakable.
She doesn’t flinch at the Fire Mustangs pawing the earth, their manes trailing wisps of smoke. Creatures no mortal should approach, much less ignore. But she does.
She doesn’t complain about the blistering heat curling through the camp, heat that would make most mortals wilt or beg for shade.
She ignores the rows of soldiers kneeling as I pass, their faces a mix of awe and suspicion.
She walks beside me like she belongs here.
She does. I am sure of it.
