The Last Ember

Lyrath should have burned. When the god-king Asbail's swarms swept the continent, the city survived because the Ember God stood between it and the dark. Then the people grew comfortable, and the god was quietly forgotten. Now the city is safe, orderly and hollow, and nobody remembers that it was ever anything else.

Aidan Vesper is a low-ranking temple apprentice with no certificate, no gifts and no future. His only job is to fill the altar fuel and stay out of the way. Then a Living Ember, a small, sentient piece of the Ember God, finds him: the last of its kind, and the first Lyrath has seen in a generation. It leads him toward everything the city has buried.

Aidan could keep the secret and stay safe. Or he could force a city to face what it gave up, and to admit that it gave it up willingly. But in a city where Public Safety and responsible citizenship come before everything else, challenging the status quo has real consequences. Events take on a life of their own, and Aidan is forced to choose, and forced to lead. No secret stays hidden forever, and the truth will always come to light.

The Last Ember is a story about the price of comfortable lies, the people who stay silent, and the unquenchable fire of truth, which refuses to die however long it is neglected.