RED DRAGON RISING, PT.1 - EMBER

In the darkness of the far future, long after the War of the Ring, Arda did not heal.
It was bought.

The kingdoms of old - Gondor, Rohan, even the black land of Mordor - have been carved into company sectors and tourist zones, history packaged and sold to the rich as curated "experiences." In the ruins between them, a girl who remembers being grown in a vat on a far-off battlefield dares to believe in peaceful change.

Her small band of comrades wants homes, not heroes. The megacorps want them gone.

On the other side of the world, in a private lab built to sell legend as luxury, something ancient opens its eyes in a stolen body and remembers the shape of conquest.

When a firing squad's bullets meet a sniper's interference, Jenny's attempt at non-violent resistance collides with a force she does not yet understand. In the fallout, an empire, a revolution, and something far older than both catch fire.

This is the spark.
Everything that follows will burn.