Chapter 1

Ava

Fire eats the horizon.

Ash sneaks into my mouth, gritting against my tongue, turning every breath to sand. The slave‑wagon that carried me north burns in a ragged circle of overturned wheels and splintered cages. Horses scream somewhere beyond the smoke—high, panicked notes that end too fast. Someone cuts their throats to quiet them.

I push a knee under me, then the other, braced on a spear shaft snapped in half during the ambush. Splinters bite my palm; hot pitch still beads along the weapon’s sheared edge. Behind me, canvas whines as it collapses into flame. The heat kisses my shoulders, coaxing sweat through the grime that’s lived on my skin for weeks.

Move, Ava.

My legs obey before the command’s finished. I lunge toward the nearest body—an elven driver whose helm rolled off when the raiders pulled him down. His eyes stare past me, clouded silver. I prise a short sword from his stiffening fingers and ignore the warm slickness that follows. Blood has rules in my world: it matters only until you wield what’s underneath it.

Across the clearing, shapes—huge, broad‑shouldered—fan out between fire and dusk. Orcs. Their silhouettes glow ember‑red where lamplight spills over pauldrons of hammered bone. I count seven, then lose track as another wagon explodes, shaking sparks into the violet sky.

A deep horn bellows. The orcs answer with guttural barks that make the hair at my neck twitch, but their language is a blur of consonants I don’t know. I’m fluent enough in menace to translate: surround, separate, subdue.

I pivot, searching for gaps. None. We’re ringed at the edge of a volcanic valley—crimson stone curling upward like a colossal bowl. Beyond the lip waits the orcs homeland west of Tlouz, if the caravan map was honest. A place where rivers run hot and stories say the ground murmurs with gods. If I run uphill, they’ll chase me onto their own turf. If I run downhill, I meet spears.

At least die swinging.

The blade in my hand feels absurdly small, an orphan compared to their war‑axes. But steel is steel and everything has joints. I suck in scorched air, humming three notes under my breath—the only song Mother left me. The melody steadies my pulse, lets my gaze sharpen.

There. An orc strides between fallen crates, helmetless, head shaved to copper stubble. His eyes shine like molten coin. He hefts a net knotted with iron weights. Not meant to kill, meant to catch. Slavers catching slavers.

I feint right, then sprint straight at him. The sword bites low across his thigh; black blood hisses against his greaves. He snarls, swings the net. I duck, rolling beneath its sweep, and slice for the tendons behind his knee. The blade jars off articulated armor—too shallow. He roars, backhanding me with an arm thick as mangrove root. My feet leave the earth. Sky, ground, sky—a pinwheel—then the volcanic dirt bashes the breath from my lungs.

Ringing fills my ears. The sword skitters away. My tongue tastes copper. I push up, elbows shaking. A boot slams between my shoulders, driving me flat.

“Stay.” The command is rough‑edged, deeper than any voice should be, vibrating through his greave into my spine.

I go boneless—not in surrender, but calculation. Let the enemy think the fight’s left you; sometimes they ease their weight. This one doesn’t. He waits, pressure steady, while another orc advances from my right. This newcomer is leaner, grey‑green skin patterned with ink sigils that wink in the fireglow. He watches me the way scholars study specimens—eyes silver, unblinking.

The sigiled orc crouches, fingers sliding over my jaw, turning my face side to side. “Human,” he murmurs, as if confirming a rumor. “Scar along the ribs… yes. She’s the one.”

My stomach hollows. They know my brand? Know the general who owned me? No—impossible. That mark hid under my tunic.

The first orc grunts. “Flamebearer.”

A hush ripples through the raiders at the word. Soot flakes drift on the stillness. Flamebearer… I scraped fragments of orc myth, particularly of the Ashfang Clan, one of biggest and tyrannical orc clan in Tlouz. I overheard stories from elven laughter: a woman forged in fire, destined to crown a king. But those were jokes, curses—never true.

I spit blood beside his boot. “Find another myth to chain, brute.”

Silver‑eyes smiles, slow and disquieting. “Oh, we found exactly who we need.” His dialect’s smoother than his companion’s—older, perhaps. “Kael will be pleased.”

“You pronounce my name like it’s fragile.” A new voice, razored by authority, cuts the air. The orcs part as someone strides from the ridge path.

Torchlight exposes him in shards: burnt‑copper skin streaked with charcoal paint, a broken‑axe tattoo splayed across a chest bare beneath spiked harness. He’s broad enough to darken the flames behind him, and when his gaze collides with mine, something ancient snarls awake in both our chests.

Chieftain’s heir, part of me supplies—the part cataloguing threats. Triplet warlords, born under a blood moon. Choose one, the prophecy says. This rumor has been going on for ages, and I have heard talks about them. Murmurs. They’re nightmares on two feet. 

Prophecy is a lie, Ava. Survive first, I tell myself. 

Kael’s eyes sweep the carnage, settle on the netter pinning me. “Varek?” he snaps, but it’s the silver‑eyed orc who answers with a nod. So Varek is sigils, Kael is paint. Netter must be another brother—Drann? Names lodge like barbs, they’ve been whispered amongst humans. 

Kael stalks closer. “She cut you?”

“Grazed me.” The copper brute lifts his boot, testing the wound in his thigh with gloved fingers. “Heals.”

Kael’s lips twitch—a wolfish almost‑smile. “Good. Means she still has teeth.” He crouches, sliding two fingers beneath my chin, tilting my head. Close now, the war paint reeks of forge‑smoke; beneath it, sweat and iron and windscoured ash. His touch is careful, but heat thunders off him, scorching the thin slave tunic plastered to my skin.

“Look at me, human.”

I do, because defiance is survival’s twin. “Enjoying the view?”

The corner of his mouth quirks higher, though the rest of his face remains carved from obsidian. “Enjoying your audacity. Might keep it. If you live.” He glances over his shoulder. “Drann.”

The silent orc—dark green skin, dreadlocked, stoic—steps forward carrying a length of braided rope glowing hot at the core. Lava‑braid, the elves called it: fibers tempered in magma, flexible as silk, unbreakable as myth. Drann loops it round my wrists; the heat sparks but doesn’t burn—strange magic singing through. I test the bind; it cinches tighter.

Kael rises. “Bring her.”

Varek offers his hand to haul me upright. When our skin meets, a faint warmth pulses from the blue runes tattooed along his wrist—a heartbeat echo. He studies the way my eyes widen. “Feel that? Bondcraft. Tells me if you lie.”

“I breathe lies.”

Varek’s grin widens. “Then you’ll keep me entertained.”

We march up the volcanic slope. Ash crumbles beneath my bare feet, still warm from noon’s sun. Behind us, the caravan burns to its bones; smoke coils into the dusk like a black banner. I count nine survivors dragging chains—human merchants, an elf guard too wounded to argue—herded by orc warriors. None fight. Hope is a fragile currency; tonight they spend none.

My wrists throb where the lava‑braid twists. Ahead, the caldera rim bleeds red light across the path. Drums rumble out of the mountain, deep as tectonic sighs. The Ashfang fortress waits within those cliffs, and inside it—a throne clawed open, three brothers poised to tear out each other’s hearts.

The braided rope jerks, jolting me from thoughts. Drann has slowed beside me, silent as snowfall. He offers a waterskin. I eye it, uncertain. He tips it to my lips without force, letting me drink or refuse. The water tastes of coppery basalt but cools the burn in my throat.

“Thank you,” I whisper—because gratitude, unlike obedience, costs nothing. His amber gaze flickers, then he nods, shoulders an unspoken oath.

Kael calls back without turning, “Quit courting the Flamebearer, little brother. You’ll have your chance.”

A low growl hums in Drann’s chest—resentment or amusement, hard to tell. Varek laughs outright, musical and menacing. “Jealous already, Kael? She hasn’t chosen.”

“She will,” Kael says, a vow forged in the mountain’s core.

Noise surges as we crest the rim. Below spreads a city carved from lava flows—terraces of obsidian lit by braziers belching golden fire. Bridges span molten fissures, glowing arteries pulsing beneath black stone. Hundreds of orcs mass in the amphitheater, stomping spears, chanting thunder. Above them, a throne dais juts from the cliff, crowned by a banner: an axe wreathed in flame.

The chieftain rises from that throne—an older giant swathed in fur and bronze, eyes blood‑shot, crown crooked. Priest robes billow beside him: embossed crimson leather, high collar framing a thin face with eyes too bright for sanity. The priest lifts a staff carved of bone; the crowd falls silent.

My heart drums in the hush. Somewhere in that stillness waits the elf general who vowed I'd bear him sons, who will hunt me until one of us returns to dust. Somewhere waits a rival tribe scenting weakness. And here, under a blood‑lit sky, three brothers will decide if I live free or die divinity.

The priest’s voice pierces the quiet, amplified by canyon walls. “Ashfang! Hear the War God’s decree. The Flamebearer walks among us.” He gestures, and Drann nudges me forward onto a platform overlooking the pit. Torches flare, painting my skin gold against the ebony rock. Gasps ripple through the gathering—curiosity, disdain, hunger.

“Behold the mortal chosen by flame itself,” the priest cries, “to judge your heirs.”

Kael, Varek, and Drann descend to the arena floor. The crowd surges close, hands outstretched to touch them—some in blessing, others in warning. I watch as the three circle each other, not touching, every muscle singing readiness. Brothers bound by blood, severed by power.

The priest turns toward me, bone staff raised. “Girl, speak your name.”

I glare down the length of his weapon, throat a forge of swallowed rage. But names are edges: give one, and you carve a space for yourself inside the enemy’s skull. “Ava.”

“Ava!” the priest repeats, and the amphitheater echoes it. He lifts the staff higher. “You will choose the Worthy. Kneel.”

Drann’s rope slackens. Varek’s eyes glitter, waiting. Kael’s gaze pins me from the arena—mouth forming a single word: stand.

I inhale smoke, iron, fear. My knees lock. “I kneel to no story.”

The crowd erupts—shock, outrage. The priest sputters. Kael’s laugh rips the air, wild and hungry. Varek’s lips part in fascination. Drann’s fists close, a silent vow.

The chieftain staggers to his feet, wine‑dark fury staining his tunic. “Chain her. Break her will.”

Kael swivels toward his father. “Bloodseed. You’ll break the prophecy, not the girl.”

“She disobeys!”

“She lives.” Kael speaks with the finality of a blade entering flesh. For an instant father and son lock eyes—mutiny flickering like static. The chieftain’s hand trembles round his goblet.

Above them, night settles, heavy with molten promise. Far across the volcanic valley, lightning veins a cloudbank crimson, as if the sky anticipates the earth’s hunger.

The priest lowers his staff, voice brittle. “The Flamebearer will be housed in the Ember Hall until dawn. Then the trials begin.”

Trials. A cage by another name.

Drann gestures, guiding me along the platform toward a stair plunging into the cliff. As we descend, Kael matches pace on my left, Varek gliding on my right. The rope still binds my wrists, yet I walk among them like a queen escorted to coronation—each heartbeat whispering a truth that terrifies me more than the rope, more than the prophecy:

They aren’t like the dark elves. They’re worse. Because part of me already wonders what it would feel like to burn beside them.

We reach a basalt corridor where heat sweats from the walls. Drann unlocks a door of woven obsidian bars and ushers me into a chamber carved near the magma vents. The floor is layered rugs, the bed piled with pelts, a small brazier flickering cinnabar light. No chains. No manacles. Subtle prison.

Kael steps inside last, brushing the doorframe. His shoulders scrape the rock. “Water, bread, furs. Ask, you get more.” He looms, eyes gold beneath war paint. “Try to run—you’ll get me.”

I swallow laughter edged with despair. “You’re all three the same leash. Why choose?”

Kael’s teeth flash—a predator’s promise. “Because bondage under one brother is different than bondage under another. You’ll learn.” He turns, strides out. Varek lingers, surveying me as though cataloguing reactions for some holy scripture. He touches the air near my cheek without contact, lips shaping a silent incantation. Heat ripples; the lava‑braid uncoils from my wrists, slithering to his hand. Freedom that isn’t.

“Sleep, Ava,” Varek murmurs. “Dream of fire. Tomorrow, you decide who tends it.” He disappears, the rune‑ink across his shoulders glowing faint as he passes the torches.

Drann stands quiet beside the brazier. He lifts a pelt—thick striped hide of some Prothekan beast—and drapes it over my shoulders. His fingers brush the faint brand across my ribs. He doesn’t flinch. Instead he bows his head, pressing his lips to my wrist where the coil burned a red ring. A vow sealed in silence.

He turns, leaves, door thudding shut.

In the hush that follows I stand alone, cloak of monster‑fur pooling around bare ankles, soot and sweat baking on my skin, throat raw from smoke and fear. Outside, drums resume—slow, thunderous. The mountain answers with quakes that rattle bowls on the shelf. The tribe sings something guttural and rapturous—a hymn to war, or desire, or both.

I sit on the edge of the bed, exhale until my lungs empty. Then I refill them with volcanic air and possibilities.

Escape is senseless now; chains reach farther than corridors. But survival? Survival is art. And power? Power wears many skins—sometimes even the skin of a slave.

In the brazier flame I trace three silhouettes on the ridge of my memory—paint, runes, dreadlocks—and hear the priest’s lie ringing under every cheer: choose the next ruler.

I clench the pelt tighter. Let them think I am their omen. Let them fight for my favor until truth bleeds out.

Because the Flamebearer is false. But the fire inside me? That is real. And tonight, under the scorn of a thousand watching torches, it begins to rise.

I hum Mother’s three notes—quiet, defiant—while the mountain drums on. And in that fragile honest sound, I promise the ash‑bitten sky:

They will burn before I do.