
by N. J. Harrison
Updates: - New Cover Design! - Ebook available on Amazon (paperback also!), Apple Books, Smashwords and Kobo Sept. 8th! 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. Notes on Update Schedule: - Four Chapters per Week on Monday/Thursday (2 per day, Long Chapters). - Patreon Members get Access Earlier to More (Higher Tier Member = Earlier Access to More Chapters) - Free Chapters Will Continue to be Posted After Full Release (minimum 25 Chapters/250,000 words)
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 19 Oct 2026, 14:08 UTC
Entry forecast updated 19 Oct 2026, 14:08 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.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 95% of similar stories
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Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 20–49 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.