The King's Coda

Ashton Madly’s life is a loop: drive, drop off, repeat. The Chicago rideshare driver has spent years stuck in neutral, drowning in routine as he works to pay off his mother’s medical bills. Adventure? That’s for other people. Until one night, when a passenger shatters his predictable world.

Dynamos Lathe isn’t just another fare—he’s a banished king from the magical realm of Arboris, fighting to reclaim his throne before his world is consumed by darkness. When Ashton agrees to do the king a simple favor, he unwittingly steps into a quest that will rewrite everything he knows. Hidden throughout Chicago are three enchanted letters, each containing a fragment of the spell that can send Dynamos home. But Chicago isn’t the city Ashton thought it was. Magic hums beneath the pavement, old powers stir in the shadows, and some doors, once opened, can never be closed.

And every fable has a wolf.

Hot on their trail is Damas, a relentless assassin with a single mission—capture the king and eliminate anyone in her way. As Ashton unearths the secrets of Dynamos’s past and the war threatening to consume both their worlds, he starts to wonder if he’s been a passenger in his own life for too long. But standing still isn’t an option anymore. If he fails, it’s not just the end of a story—it’s the end of everything.