Chapter 5 · free to read
Nine tiers. The kingdom had a word for it in its oldest songs and no one alive had ever seen it. Aldermere was not a world. Aldermere was the bottom step.
Ice breaks jagged. Metal fatigues rough. This was neither. This was a cut.
The sun did not die. Nobody's sun dies. Somebody came down here with a tool and took it off the line.
The Ember-Courts had not looked at Aldermere in a hundred years. One thawed room and they were at the door.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.