Emberlight Calling

In the sterile, perfectly ordered world of the Valerian Hegemony, emotion is a disease and magic is a ghost story. For data clerk Megan Tucker, survival depends on being invisible, on hiding the chronic "fever" that is actually a volatile power she can't control. In a society that hunts and eradicates magic as the ultimate form of chaos, her secret is a death sentence waiting to be carried out. One impulsive act of empathy shatters her fragile existence. When her power erupts to save a child's life, Megan is branded a fugitive and a monster. Thrown into the city's grimy underbelly, she becomes the target of a relentless manhunt led by Lord Justicar Adrian Gray, a brilliant and terrifyingly efficient enforcer whose sorrowful eyes seem to hide a dark history of his own. Her only hope lies with a hidden rebellion of magic-wielders who see her not as a monster, but as a prophesied savior. She finds a new life, and a potential new love, with their charismatic leader, Connor. But as she's pushed to become the weapon they need, she begins to suspect she has only traded one cage for another. When a devastating betrayal forces an impossible alliance with the hunter who swore to destroy her, Megan uncovers a secret history carved in stone-a truth that proves the Hegemony is built on a lie, and her greatest enemy may be her only true ally.

In the shadow of the tyrannical Iron Concord, where magic is a disease and all who wield it are hunted, Lillian is the Sun-Forged-a living weapon with the power of a star raging in her chest. Her only protector is the man who was sent to capture her: Brian White, a disgraced Concord Suppressor whose chilling efficiency is matched only by the scars on his soul. Bound by a shared enemy, this fragile alliance of hunter and hunted must navigate a blighted world that wants them dead. Hunted by two opposing armies-the relentless Concord soldiers who wish to cage her and a fanatical rebellion that seeks to worship her as a god of war-their flight for survival becomes a desperate quest for answers. They soon discover that the prophecies are a lie, that her true destiny is not to be a weapon, but something far more dangerous: a Balancer, destined to stand between the crushing forces of absolute order and absolute chaos. But as their trust deepens into something more, they uncover a greater conspiracy, an unseen enemy pulling the strings of both sides, pushing the world towards a final, engineered apocalypse. When the Concord springs its ultimate trap, using a horrifying new technology and turning Lillian's closest friend into soulless bait, she faces an impossible choice. To save those she loves, must she finally unleash the world-shattering power she has fought so hard to control and become the very monster she fears?

Lauren Clark carries a storm inside her, a world-breaking power she believes is a curse. Her only anchor is Max Grant, a haunted former magic-hunter now her sworn protector. He sees the terrified girl, not the monster, and will follow her into any fire. But when a forgotten prophecy reveals Lauren's true purpose, the truth is more terrifying than any nightmare. She is the Embersoul, a healer destined to save the world by reconnecting it to its fading heart. The ritual, however, demands the ultimate price: not her life, but her very self. To save everyone, she must agree to be erased. Their desperate journey to the heart of the world is a race against two looming apocalypses. They are hunted by a grief-stricken tyrant armed with a weapon of unimaginable sorrow, and a charismatic prophet who would be a god. As armies of steel and zealotry close in, Lauren and Max discover their bond is more than love-it is destiny. He is the Aegis, a guardian prophesied to be her shield. But in a world tearing itself apart, can a shield protect a soul from a sacrifice that has already been written?