The Ashlands Free online reading

A desert of living death.

Four centuries ago, the Stewards rained ash on the heartland of an empire for a year and a day, murdering the Elentian Empire and orphaning the Hasran Imperium where I was born.

The stories say the ash drains magic and that any who venture into the Ashlands will need to contend with the armies of unliving swimming beneath the ash—unliving as old as the Mad Imperator Jhordil himself.

My final tomb lies somewhere out in that terrible ocean of soot. Before I can help Li or settle the Hasran civil war, I need to find it. I need to understand who and what I am if I am ever to fight my aunt or the demon princes she no doubt controls.

I will sail into those uncharted lands, and I will prevail. I have to. The cycle depends on it.