The Ember Road by N. J. Harrison

In the harsh Granite Badlands, where stone remembers every footstep and the wind carries the whispers of old monsters, eighteen‑year‑old Mahti dreams of a life beyond the terraces of her isolated village. Stonewater survives on ritual, memory, and the fragile balance between people and the land. But the balance has vanished: a blight has come, a world-ending plague that touches all life, bringing with it hunger, fear, and death.

When tragedy strikes, Mahti must risk everything to journey beyond her village. Her only hope: the near‑mythical Hunters Guild, wanderers sworn to keep the balance of the world. But the Guild has not been seen for decades. No one agrees where their paths run anymore, and the only place they called home is halfway across the world.

To save her home, Mahti must cross lands shaped by monsters, survive dangers older than memory, and face the truth buried beneath the stories she once believed in. The journey will demand sacrifice. It will demand loss. And it will not wait.

The Ember Road is a sweeping tale of grit, wonder, and awakening, the beginning of an epic saga where monsters shape the land, memory shapes the people, and one young woman's choices may shape the world.