The Runestone

In the shattered world of Virelia, power comes not from birthright or blood, but from ancient symbols of unimaginable might—Runes. These fragments of divine language, scattered across the world, grant those who bear them supernatural abilities... and a brutal death if misused. Empires rise and fall over them. People kill, betray, and die to claim even a single rune. Most will search a lifetime and find nothing. Others are born with them—marked, cursed, hunted. Kael, a seventeen-year-old orphan from a forgotten village, never sought power. But when his home is razed and he survives a massacre with a glowing sigil bursting from his chest, he learns the terrifying truth: he carries a God-Rune, the rarest and deadliest of them all. A rune not found, but forged inside him. One that doesn’t grant power—it becomes it. Rescued from the brink of death by a pair of mysterious girls—Arin, a cold and disciplined warrior with a sealed rune in her spine, and Lira, a flirty and dangerous rogue with unknown loyalties—Kael is thrust into a hidden world of mercenaries, cults, and warlords who would kill to control him. Some want his rune. Others want him. Few care if he survives. As Kael trains in the secretive House of Ember, battling inner demons and the volatile power awakening inside, he must decide whether to become the weapon the world demands—or forge a path of his own before the rune consumes him. But shadows gather. Assassins whisper his name. A Rune War is brewing. And darker things than men have begun to stir. Power will test him. Blood will baptize him. Girls will love him. And gods… will fear him.