The Gilded Pyre

Seventeen-year-old Kaela knows only the ash-choked alleys of Ashvail, a city ruled by the tyrannical Ashen Sovereign and eternally shrouded in the fumes of the volcanic god they call the Ashen Spire.  Survival is her only goal, until a false accusation exposes a truth she never imagined: Kaela is the last Emberborn, wielding a forgotten power tied to the mystical Gilded Pyre, a flame worshipped for its ability to control the very earth.  Condemned to death, she’s thrust into a desperate fight for survival against a Sovereign obsessed with rekindling the Pyre’s fading strength — an obsession that threatens to shatter Ashvail’s foundations.
Hunted by the Sovereign’s Obsidian Guard, Kaela’s escape plunges her into the city’s treacherous underbelly. Noble houses clash in a deadly game for the Pyre’s power, each seeking to control the vital resources extracted from the Spire's molten heart.  Kaela, unknowingly, becomes the key to their ambitions, a living conduit to unimaginable power.  But she’s not alone.  Ren, an alchemist scarred by the Pyre's volatile energy, seeks atonement for past mistakes.  Malek, a disgraced soldier stripped of his honor, sees in Kaela a weapon against the empire that ruined him.  Bound by their shared desperation, they embark on a perilous quest to restore the Pyre’s balance, a journey that will take them to the heart of the Spire and force Kaela to confront the terrifying depths of her own power.
Beneath the city, in a subterranean realm of lava flows and ancient forges, they face grotesque lava-wrought creatures, remnants of a shattered pact between humanity and the Spire’s fiery spirit.  Above ground, rebellion simmers, fueled by the Sovereign’s tightening grip and the whispers of a vibrant past choked by his ambition.  As the empire teeters on the brink of collapse, Kaela is haunted by visions of a verdant Ashvail, a land teeming with life before the Sovereign’s reign.  She discovers a devastating truth: the Gilded Pyre is not merely a source of power, but a sentient entity, its fate interwoven with her own.
Kaela faces a harrowing choice: unleash the Pyre’s full fury and risk Ashvail’s incineration, or forge a new pact with the fiery heart of her world.  In the Spire’s molten core, she confronts the Sovereign in a final, explosive showdown.  With the fate of Ashvail hanging in the balance, Kaela must choose her path — embrace destruction or forge a new beginning.