The Ember Pact

In a galaxy of ideologically pure alien civilizations, one human trader holds the key to survival: the instinct to form unlikely alliances.Elias Fortier, a human independent trader, steps off his ship the Cinderman onto the neutral station called the Lantern. There, he encounters the Photaris diplomat Vexis being of coherent golden light offering a formal greeting and the aggressive Skarrik, who demands to inspect his cargo. But when Skarrik tries to claim Elias's repair drone swarm as contraband, Elias reveals a far more dangerous asset: the human capacity to bridge divides that alien species consider sacred.As the Photaris watch with calculating diplomacy and Skarrik's faction bristles with hostility, Elias must navigate a web of ancient feuds, rigid codes of honor, and a looming extinction threat that no single species can face alone. The Ember Pact is a story of how humanity, flawed and fractured, finds unity where others find only division.