Meet the author

Salomay was born beneath a sky that never cooled.

Her homeworld, Volcana, breaths with sulfur and fire. The rivers of molten rock carved glowing paths through their cities. The architects did not hide them, they built around them. Transparent floors stretched across streets stretching to each structure, making it so citizens could walk above the living red currents that powered their world. On Volcana, lava was not feared. It was life.

And Salomay was born able to command that lava.

From childhood, she could summon molten lava from nothing, shaping it with thought and touch. Where others saw destruction, she saw creation. With a single touch she could cool the blaze into black glass called obsidian, forming blades, shields, spikes, or walls in an instant. What flowed like liquid fire at her command could harden into the sharpest weapon in existence just as quickly.

Her touch alone could turn metal, stone, or machinery into a collapsing pool of heat… and with another touch, freeze it into volcanic glass.

But Salomay did not learn strength from the fire.

She learned it from her father.

A blacksmith by trade, he possessed a rare resistance to heat and flame. The furnaces never burned him. The sparks never scarred him. He was known across Volcana for forging strange, beautiful, but deadly creations from the planet’s living rivers. To him, lava was not chaos. It was art.

And his daughter was his masterpiece.

He raised her alone with soot on his hands and pride in his eyes, teaching her that power was not something to unleash, it was something to shape.

On Volcana, fire destroys.

In Salomay’s hands, it obeys.