A village lost to flame. A boy born of ash. A monster too unnatural to be anything but made.
Veldermere was meant to be safe—tucked in the arms of the valley, buried in snow and superstition. But when the skies split and a creature stitched from nightmare slaughters everything Kaelen holds dear, safety dies with the rest of the village. Left burned, orphaned, and hunted by his own kin, Kaelen is marked not just by trauma—but by something deeper. Older. Inhuman.
He doesn't bleed right. He hears the bones of beasts whisper. And when he screams, things catch fire.
Then a stranger comes through the smoke. Cloaked in wyrmscale and silence, Master Aldric of the forgotten School of the Wyrm claims Kaelen is no cursed child—he is chosen. For what, Aldric won't say. But Kaelen knows one truth: if he stays, he burns everything.
Taken from the ruins into the frozen Spine of the World, Kaelen begins a brutal new life among alchemists, killers, and legends. But the horror that razed Veldermere was no accident—and it's not done with him yet.
Before Kaelen becomes the Pale Witcher… he must first survive being hunted, broken, and reforged.
The fire inside him is growing. And it's hungry.
> *"The best origin stories don't begin with prophecy. They begin with blood."*