by ShaneM30
In Aethelgard, a person's worth is determined by the power of the beast they bond with through a Soul Pact. Sixteen-year-old Kael is an Ungilded slum-dweller—one of the people society has already decided are worthless. When he enters the Sovereign Rite, he expects to fail like every Ungilded before him. Instead, something impossible answers. Kael forms a bond unlike anything Aethelgard has seen before, leaving him marked by a power no one understands and drawing the attention of those who would rather see the impossible controlled than questioned. What begins as one boy's struggle to survive soon leads Kael toward secrets buried beneath the world he thought he knew—and questions that could change everything he believes about power, worth, and the bonds between them. Book One and Book Two are complete. Book Three of the planned five-book Aetherbound saga is coming soon.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 5 Oct 2026, 03:38 UTC
Entry forecast updated 5 Oct 2026, 03:38 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Coupled 14-day outlook
rs-joint-entry-copula-v1
Any eligible RS entry
0%
Two or more lists
0%
Likely threshold order: Fantasy → Action → Adventure → Main.
Leading bundle: Fantasy (0%).
Estimated from one fitted shared story path; category probabilities are not multiplied as if lists were independent.
Separate entry forecast; this probability does not enter the ranking score.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#10986 of 12,277 · 10936 below RS #50
By genre
beats 71% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 47% of similar stories
Mid-pack, room on both levers
Traffic and conversion both sit mid-field for a story this size. Growth here compounds from consistency: steady cadence feeds traffic, and a sharper hook lifts what each view is worth.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.
