Isles of the Emberdark

Set in the Cosmere, Brandon Sanderson's shared fantasy and science fiction universe, this standalone novel incorporates the novella Sixth of the Dusk as flashback chapters and follows two protagonists whose paths converge: Sixth of the Dusk, the last trapper of the deadly island Patji on a planet called First of the Sun, and Starling (Illistandrista), a young dragon exiled from her kind and locked in human form by magical silver manacles.

A prologue set 57 years before the main events shows Starling as a dragonet experiencing her first transformation under the guidance of her uncle Frost, an ancient dragon. Dragons live their first three decades in human form to learn empathy for mortals before gaining the ability to shift between forms. In the present day, Starling has been exiled and stripped of her draconic abilities for 12 years.

In the present, Dusk is a man without purpose. Once a solitary trapper on Patji, the most dangerous island in the Pantheon archipelago, he now gives presentations to bored children at a heritage park. Aviar, intelligent birds that grant magical abilities to bonded humans, were once gathered by trappers who risked their lives on Patji; now they are mass-produced in industrial Aviaries. Dusk carries Sak, a unique Aviar whose talent shows him visions of his own corpse as warnings of danger. His other companion, Kokerlii, a bird that cloaked minds from predators, died two years earlier in a plague.

Interwoven flashback chapters reveal how Dusk first met Vathi, a company clerk he rescued from one of his traps on Patji five years ago. Together they crossed the island at night, fleeing nightmaws, enormous predators that hunt by sensing minds, and discovered the secret of Aviar talents: glowing parasitic worms in a sacred pool at Patji's Eye that grant powers to any bird that eats them. They also realized that alien visitors called the Ones Above, humans from the planet Scadrial who arrive in starships, had deliberately left technology as a trap designed to justify future conquest.

In the present, Vathi has risen to president of the governing First Company. When a second alien faction arrives demanding allegiance, Dusk's Aviar Sak shows him an unprecedented vision: not his own corpse but Vathi's, aged and dressed in a Scadrian uniform, dead as a colonial governor. The Eelakin, Dusk's people, are running out of time.

Dusk and Vathi have also discovered that Patji's sacred pool is a perpendicularity, a rare portal between the Physical Realm and Shadesmar, a parallel dimension where interplanetary travel is faster. The region beyond, called the emberdark, is an infinite dark plane with a transparent surface and no navigable landmarks. Dusk sets off alone in a small boat coated with glowing worm paste, which allows objects to float on the emberdark's surface, to find proof that the Eelakin can chart their own course in the wider universe.

Meanwhile, Starling serves as first officer aboard the Dynamic, a patchwork cargo ship crewed by outcasts recruited by their absent master Hoid: Nazh, a ghostly shade from the planet Threnody serving as security; ZeetZi, a feather-crested technician; Leonore, a Scadrian military deserter and pilot; Ed, an arcanist; Aditil, a young engineer; and Chrysalis, a Sleepless, a group intelligence composed of hundreds of insect-like hordelings, who serves as ship's doctor. When the crew defies their interim captain Crow to rescue a stranded family from a deadly entity from Threnody, the rescued family gives Starling an ancient map pointing to a perpendicularity on the planet the Scadrians call Drominad: First of the Sun. Starling negotiates a high-stakes wager with the ship's dragon owner, Xisis: She must confirm the perpendicularity within six months or serve him for 50 years.

In the emberdark, Dusk endures weeks of isolation, hunting massive eyeless predators he names skullsnakes. After eating worm paste, he hears a thrumming pulse called the Current, waves emanating from a distant cosmere landmark called the Knell. Unlike instruments that can only point toward the Knell, Dusk can feel interference patterns in the Current the same way traditional navigators read wave patterns around islands. He can sense land, creatures, and distances. He has become a Navigator of the emberdark.

Three weeks later, Dusk finds an island occupied by Malwish Scadrian soldiers under Colonel Dajer, a military engineer seeking the perpendicularity. A massive entity called the Dakwara, a serpentine being shaped over centuries by Eelakin storytelling from a fragment of a dead god, guards a moat around an inner island. Starling's ship arrives at the same island, and Dajer forces the crew to land, captures Nazh, and locks the crew in a habitat pod. He pressures Starling into a service contract by threatening her crew, offering to free her manacles using a device called the Intensifier.

Dajer sends Dusk and Starling into a tunnel overgrown with deadly Patji flora and fauna to find a path past the entity. Inside, Dusk realizes the sequence of dangers mirrors his nighttime crossing of Patji with Vathi years earlier: The cave is a manifestation of Investiture, the universe's magical energy, shaped by his own memories. In a dream-vision, Dusk witnesses Cakoban, the legendary Navigator ancestor of the Eelakin, sacrifice himself to bind the original entity to this location, preventing it from pursuing his people.

The crew devises an escape plan: If Starling gets Dajer to fire the Intensifier long enough, the enormous power drain will cause a camp-wide blackout, disabling the magnetic locks on their pod and Nazh's prison. During a spiritual experience triggered by the Intensifier, Starling encounters Hoid, who counsels her to stop protecting her crew alone and start leading them. She returns, admits her uncertainty, and this vulnerability galvanizes the crew into collaborative action.

At the climax, Starling signs Dajer's contract and goads him into firing the Intensifier at full power. As her draconic powers surge and freedom beckons, she deliberately feeds her own energy into the manacles to prevent them from breaking, choosing her crew's escape over her personal liberation. The power fails. During the blackout, Aditil smashes Nazh's prison, Nazh terrorizes the guards, ZeetZi overrides the ship's lockdown, and Leonore powers up the Dynamic.

Simultaneously, Dusk challenges the Dakwara, spearing skullsnakes and using them to tow his boat at speed through the moat. He reaches the inner island and finds Cakoban's bones alongside draconic writing signed by Frost, Starling's uncle, confirming the Eelakin once navigated the emberdark and befriended dragons. The Dakwara bows before Dusk; by surviving her test, he has earned her service for a hundred years. When Dajer's gunship targets the fleeing Dynamic, Dusk commands the Dakwara to destroy it. The entity crushes the bridge, killing Dajer, but sets down the surviving section so soldiers can escape.

Dusk leads Starling through the perpendicularity on Patji, emerging into sunlight on First of the Sun, where Vathi meets them. Dusk proposes that instead of selling Aviar, his people sell their unique ability to navigate the emberdark, a skill no other civilization possesses, making conquest counterproductive and cooperation essential.

In an epilogue set six months later, the first team of trained Navigators completes a successful voyage. Dusk transfers command of the Dakwara to the office of the president, reasoning that a democratic institution rather than one person should control their greatest defense. He joins the Dynamic as its Navigator and sets out with his new crew to find other isolated peoples facing similar threats. The crew unanimously commits their next mission to freeing Starling from her manacles, and Aditil returns her homeworld ticket to Starling, choosing to stay until her captain can go home too.