1. Chapter 1: The Man Without a Name

A nameless man wakes in the ruins of a burning city with no memory of who he is. His only clue: a black scar shaped like a flame on his left palm, and the whisper of a name — Eiris — that he cannot place. He is found by soldiers of the Ashen Order, who call him a deserter. Before they can chain him, a silver-haired woman in a tattered cloak cuts them down with a blade of crystallized smoke. She looks at him with eyes full of grief and fury — and then she says his name. His real name. A name he does not remember.