The Aetherium Chronicles: Book One – The Gathering Storm

The Aetherium Chronicles: Book One – The Gathering Storm The Shadow Calls. The Only Key Is Cursed. For two hundred years, Drezlan Valerian’s-Son, the last of the Umbra-Kael, has hidden the truth of his blood beneath the soot of a frontier forge. But when the Watcher Mithos arrives with a terrible, unwelcome gift—the Aetherium Shard—Drezlan’s peace is shattered. The Shard is the key to sealing the monstrous Void King, yet it is a cold, whispering poison that draws the King's agents and the terrifying Shadow-Wraith directly to Drezlan. In the fiery ruin of Oakhaven village, Drezlan flees, weighed down by the Fragment that screams of dark power in his mind. Hunted by the Shadow, Drezlan finds grim protection and command under Kael, the silent ranger who is, in truth, the exiled King of Men. Though bound by an ancient oath, Kael and Drezlan must face the judgment and ancestral hatreds of their wary new allies. At the Halls of Whispering Lore, Drezlan makes the only choice possible: he will carry the Shard to the Altar of Silent Banishment. This desperate act forges an unlikely alliance: The Fellowship of the Aetherium Shard. Six suspicious companions—an Umbra-Kael outcast, a King in exile, a Human Captain, an Elf, a Dwarf, and the loyal Silken Lin—must journey across a land collapsing into war. But after betrayal and starvation bring them to their knees, and an unbearable sacrifice consumes their magical guide, the Fellowship must break for the Great Northern Waste, leaving behind the smoke of a world consumed. In these final moments of freedom, will Kael's sword and Lin's devotion prove stronger than the curse of the Shard, waiting to consume the soul of its Bearer? The first book in an epic saga of loyalty, redemption, and the war against the gathering shadow.