The moment I finished Shattered Faith, I turned my attention to the next installment of my historical fiction tale for patrons. While this entry blends in fantasy elements, it remains firmly rooted in the past. Some aspects required research to help ground the story, though I’ve kept the locations intentionally vague to allow narrative flexibility. Picking up where Scarred Ash left off, this story continues the hunt.
A town lies perched near a volcano. Its an unassuming dot on the expanding frontier map. But that quiet ends when something deep beneath the earth snaps, carving a molten scar into the land. Beneath a boiling sky and plumes of fire-lit smoke, Samuel and Anna plunge into danger. They aren’t just tracking devastation—they’re chasing a man whose gambit may cost more than either of them expects.
As dragons soar over rivers of lava and black tendrils of smoke coil into the sky, old grudges ignite, and the stakes burn brighter than the flames. In this chapter, trust is rare, survival is earned, and not everything is as it seems.
Find a comfortable chair and join me as Samuel and Anna near the end of their long pursuit of Tobias.
What they believe is the final confrontation begins when they descend onto scorched earth and glimpse a lone figure standing at the edge of the lava flow…
As the ground trembled beneath the flying dragons, plumes of smoke reached into the skies like sensory tendrils of a blind creature. Pearl and Bruce weaved through the inky shoots as bursts of lava breached the ground. Samuel hunched over Pearl’s neck and hissed a curse as he spotted the caldera’s new scar. A gash of molten light bloomed at the base of the mountain, just outside the remote frontier town of Lost Creek.
Despite the people fleeing the outskirts of the township, Samuel scanned the area near the spewing flow. He rose, his head whipping about. “Something’s happening down there.”
“He’s nearby.” Anna sat up on Bruce’s back, pointing at the pool of lava while she urged her dragon toward the location.
Samuel grunted as he guided Pearl to the spot beside the flowing magma. “Let’s be careful. Based on what his men said, this is more than likely an ambush.”
“We can’t let him get away,” Anna said over her shoulder as Bruce dove.
A groan seeped from Samuel’s lips as he followed in Anna’s wake. When the dragons landed on the scarred earth, Samuel vaulted off Pearl’s shoulder as he shouldered his Winchester. Anna stepped beside Samuel, aiming at a man lingering near the flowing molten rock. With a toothy smile, Tobias bowed, the brim of his soot-smeared hat hanging over him.
He rose, bringing his hands in front of his chest, with a smirk. “I’ll say that I didn’t expect the two of you to be this swift.”
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