At Skarrholt, the birds choose their riders.

Cael Vantric has spent his whole life preparing to be chosen by an eagle. His family name, his future, and everything he has been taught to believe about himself depend on it.

Instead, a vulture descends.

The choice is public, humiliating, and impossible to undo. Worse, the bird is tied to the Carrion House, an ancient Order struck from the academy’s records generations ago and left to decay at the edge of Skarrholt.

Forced into a bond he never wanted, Cael is drawn into the forgotten work of the Carrion House, the buried history of his family, and a truth the academy has spent centuries teaching itself not to see.

As old loyalties fracture and a quiet connection grows between Cael and one of the last remaining Bearers, he must decide whether being chosen is a fate to endure, an inheritance to escape, or a life worth claiming for himself.

Because at Skarrholt, the birds choose.

And sometimes they remember what people would rather forget.

In a cursed desert, three bloodline gifts are all that remain of a goddess who broke herself to save her people.

Efren has spent his life certain the sands will claim him early—and that his brutal father will make sure of it. But when an empire comes hunting the desert’s power and an ancient presence begins whispering his name, Efren is pulled toward a destiny far stranger than survival.

Sacred laws will be broken. Lost stones will surface. Old blood will reveal secrets buried for generations.

And somewhere beneath the shifting sands, the Mother is waking.