Literature / Heart of the Journey

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Heart of the Journey is a web novel by E.R. Hamilton, which follows the misadventures of a diminutive middle school girl with a penchant for history. Set in a unique fantasy world, it covers the relatable terrors of middle school amidst magic and dragons.

A socially inept history buff, Scarlet is burdened with being descended from greatness. Her ancestors were epic heroes and powerful mages. But in the intervening generations that family line has moved out to the suburbs. She's on a quest to find a long lost magical sword, and the only help she has are the books at her local library. Fortunately for her, said library is an ancient enchanted library filled with endless books.

Heart of the Journey was launched on Wattpad in January 2026. It can be read here. New chapters release every Friday at 9 AM PST.

Heart of the Journey contains examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Scarlet finds herself the unwanted object of Relend’s affections.

• A-Cup Angst: while wearing a strapless dress, Scarlet makes reference to “lacking any reasonable anchoring points” to keep it up.

• Accidental Theft: While attempting to save a table full of oddities, Scarlet accidentally swaps a cheap reproduction of an ancient amulet with the real thing. Naturally, she keeps it and doesn't tell anyone.

• Action Prologue: Doubling with Distant Prologue, the story begins with an action-heavy losing battle which tells the story of how the sword came to be lost.

• Adopted Mannerisms: When annoyed or deep in thought, Scarlet will pinch the bridge of her nose. Her mother does the same thing, leading one to guess where she got it from.

• Adults Are Useless: during the school dance its pointed out the adults who are supposed to be chaperoning are at the other end of the campus, leaving a gymnasium full of rowdy kids with no supervision. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

• Adventurer Archaeologist: Scarlet fancies herself an adventurer during her attempt to find the lost Blood Stele. She even brings a (toy) bullwhip along with her, and finds a novel use for it as part of a torch.

• The Ageless: Naomi Jusenkyou, daughter of the last Pendragon, distant ancestor to Scarlet(and, by extension, her father Roy), is said to be nearly 3,700 years old; having become immortal near the end of the last Age.

• All for Nothing: Scarlet finds the Blood Stele, but it is in a language she can’t read.

• All Just a Prank: during desert crossing, Scarlet is made to stand watch at night, in a desert full of horrible monsters. Her only weapon is a gun she can barely drag along the sand, let alone aim and fire. there are three others standing watch with her, and the caravan rarely ever actually sees the monsters. The caravan crew set her up out there to see how long she’d last before screaming or crying. She lasted the full two hours and then some. For being a good sport about it, she’s made an honorary member of the crew.

• Ancient Tomb: Scarlet falls into one by mistake. Naturally, she goes and explores it. As one does.

• Alpha Bitch: Scarlet's sarcastic air quotes "friend" Bethany in spades.

• Bad Date: maybe not from an inter-personal perspective(she does get her first kiss), but the gym burns down and the school ends up covered in penguin poop.

• Benevolent Monsters: Dragons eat about 20 people a year. They also run the money system and own most of the banks.

• Beware the Nice Ones: Roy seems like a mild mannered accountant, but cross him and he’s ready to go after you with small army of friends.

• Blind Date: Well, "note-date" according to Scarlet's mother. But when Scarlet is forced to attend a middle school dance but doesn’t dare to go alone, her good friend Esperanza promises to set her up with “a hot date”. It is important to remember that Esperanza is a dragon.

• Bullying the Dragon: a completely literal example. Alpha Bitch Bethany’s boyfriend opts to attack Kruz, who is a dragon. Kruz initially tries to warn him; but Chet is a special kind of persistent and stupid. The resulting fight burns down the gym.

• Bookworm: Scarlet, to the point where her entire bedroom is a small library, and she visits the Great Library almost every day (except when it's closed). Emmerich nicknames her "book-wurm".

• Boots of Toughness: Scarlet's choice of combat boots is an early clue that she might be tougher than she looks.

• Brilliant, but Lazy: Scarlet is shown to be quite intelligent but is nearly failing out of school. It’s implied if she were to put as much effort into all her schoolwork as she does her personal research, she could probably be skipping grades.

• Chore Character Exploration: Scarlet can be seen doing laundry. Her attitude in this instance reflects how she treats tasks she doesn't like.

• Citadel City: Naomi’s city, actually called “The Citadel” was said to have held off invasions and dozens of major sieges for over three thousand years. Believeing it is an entire bastion city, Scarlet is eager to go there. It turns out to be a very different trop.

• Clothing Reflects Personality: Scarlet wears plain, utilitarian clothes and the same thing every day. This follows her all-or-nothing approach to pretty much everything.

• Colourful Theme Naming: Scarlet's aliases which she uses for library cards - at least the ones that are named in the text - tend to have names connected to shades of red, like "Rose Jusenkyou" and "Carmine Jusenkyou", matching her real name.

• Comical Overreacting: apparently, Scarlet once barricaded herself in her bedroom when her mother asked if she’d like to go to sleep away camp.

• Constructed World: Built entirely from the ground up, with a lengthy history all its own. The protagonist is obsessed with said history and reads extensively.

• Convenient Slow Dance: In the middle of the altercation between Chet and the dragon Kruz, a slow song starts and everyone pretends the fight never happened.

• Creature of Habit: Scarlet wears olive green cargo pants and combat boots every day.

• Crossing the Desert: for the final leg of her journey to the Naomi’s Citadel, Scarlet has cross a thirsty desert crawling with blood beasts. Fortunately, she's able to ride with a desert caravan(albeit it a modern one in trucks). She learns a lot about survival along the way.

• Creepy Cave: Exploring the abandoned parts of the dragon cave. It's so big and dark that Scarlet's flashlight doesn't help visibility much, though fortunately Esperanza's fire burns more brightly and helps to make it less eerie.

• Curse of The Ancients: How Scarlet does most of her swearing. She uses archaic words blended from many past eras. Her father sometimes comments that he only knows she’s swearing from context.

• Daddy's Girl: as an only child Scarlet is naturally close to both parents, but clearly favors her father. He also seems to understand her better than her mother.

• Dance Enthusiast: A mild case; Scarlet genuinely likes couples dancing, even if she’s not very good. But her general awkwardness and low social status means she doesn’t get a lot of opportunities.

• Dating What Daddy Hates: a mild example(and not a date, according to Scarlet's mom). Scarlet is supposed to find a date for the school dance, and gets set up by her friend with a nicely age-appropriate dragon. Her father is less annoyed about the dragon part, but points out the reason her therapist made her go to the dance at all was to try something normal. Scarlet replied that she tried, and failed.

• Delightful Dragon: Esperanza not only refuses to eat the protagonist, but she'll even take you shopping!

• Distant Prologue: The prologue is set some 3,600 years before the actual story, and depicts that last stand of some of the protagonist's distant ancestors.

• Door Dumb: Scarlet is invited to the headquarters of the Antiquarian Society, and is so in awe at the thought of being able to go inside for the first time that, despite her having walked its grounds before, when she tries to open the door her mother has to point out the sign…

• Dragon Ancestry: The Slayer Dragons, though they weren't necessarily actual dragons themselves, were magically imbued with draconic power by a dragon-mage. Being a distant descendant of one of them on her father's side, Scarlet is technically part dragon, albeit a miniscule part, boosted just slightly by the fact that one of the ancestors somewhere in between also married a full-blooded dragon.

• Dragon Hoard: The dragons' hoard is described as being the size of a small mountain, with every object imaginable made of gold in there. Including a kitchen sink.

• Dying Town: Gau, once the gateway to The Citadel, is now little more than a home base for a desert caravan. The only other industries seem to be scavenging from the abandoned buildings and selling knickknacks to the tourists who visit by riverboat.
  • also, The Citadel itself.

• Exposition Beam: Dragon memories are strong enough to have "a life of their own", enabling them to be transferred from one individual to another. The golden dragon Zyacrun is able to transfer one of Fumer's memories to Scarlet by touching a claw to her forehead, enabling her to see the day he met the last Pendragon, which Scarlet experiences through his own eyes, even feeling what he felt. Zyacrun in turn got that memory from Fumer's son Thorner.

• Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems: a lot of the book’s humor derives from this. From the first page, Scarlet is watching a dragon fly overhead whilst being bullied by some kids from her ordinary middle school.

• Extremely Overdue Library Book: Scarlet owes a small fortune in overdue and lost book fees, leading one to wonder if she's ever returned a book on time.

• Fantastically Indifferent: Scarlet’s father, Roy. Crosses over with [1]. When greeted at the door by a zombie who takes his coat and hat, he responds as if this happens everyday. Then again, Roy grew up in Arindell, so this is pretty normal.

• Fell Off the Back of a Truck: How Scarlet got one of her rarer books. Or, rather, found on the bus. Or, more accurately, stolen from an aging Antiquarian on the bus.

• First Kiss: Scarlet has hers, on the dance floor, with the dragon Kruz. The normally shy girl is emboldened enough to initiate the kiss herself.

• Flowers of Romance: Kruz brings Scarlet a corsage and pins it on her dress for their not-date.

• Friend to All Children: The fearsome dragon Esperanza is seen playing with a little human boy to pass the time. Of course, she's not so fearsome once you get to know her.

• Functional Magic: the magic system is only touched on briefly but seems to have in-depth underlying rules.

• Hates Baths: Scarlet hates baths and prefers fast, cold showers; so she has more time for reading.

• Healing Hands: In the first chapter, Scarlet's mother mentions wanting to take Scarlet to a mage-healer for a cut on her temple, and it's noted that magical healing is a luxury compared to mundane methods. At the exhibition, one of the Slayer Dragons notices the wound and offers to heal it for her, his hand glowing with magic when he reaches to touch it, although it causes her to faint instead of healing her.

• Height Angst: Scarlet is very short, standing at just 4'10". And mad about it.
  • While preparing for the school dance, she considers wearing heels in the hopes of "being mistaken for five feet tall".

• Girliness Upgrade: for her second visit to the necromancer temple, Scarlet opts to give “looking cute” a try, and wears some of her new clothes.

• Glowing Gem: Draconic magic creates a glowing orange gemstone called dragonite found inside dragon caves. It's also mentioned that some buildings have enchanted crystals inside.

• Great Big Library of Everything: the Great Library of Arindell. It’s mentioned offhand that it probably contains answers to everything about Aren’s history. It just isn’t organized.

• Here There Be Dragons: the world has actual dragons, but apparently finding them is not an exact science. One of the pre-chapter blurbs mentions that if a map contains a blank space marked ‘here be dragons’, there’s a roughly fifty/fifty chance its accurate. This is apparently considered an accomplishment, since older maps used to be worse.

• Heroic Lineage: Scarlet's Jusenkyou ancestors, many generations ago, were warriors and heroes who saved Arindell. In the modern day, her family is fairly average, living in the suburbs with her father working as an accountant.

• Hopeless with Tech: Scarlet. In an odd case for a fantasy novel, this has nothing to do with magic. She’s just naturally bad at it.

• Hiding from Embarrassment: Scarlet retreats to a concealed gardener's path in chapter four so no one will see her cry after Bethany teases her for being a weird nerd. It's implied she does this sort of thing often.

• High-School Dance: Junior High, anyway. Like most things, it goes badly for Scarlet. But, arguably, worse for her school.

• Intelligence Equals Isolation: This seems to be Scarlet's chief problem, socially. She's smarter than the kids her age and obsessed with something everyone around her thinks is boring. So she'd rather stay inside with her books.

• Intergenerational Friendship: Scarlet and Emmerich are a full 80 years apart in age, at 13 and 93 years old respectively, but he's described as her mentor, surrogate grandpa, and closest friend, due to their shared interest in history. When he wins an invitation to an exhibition of Slayer Dragon relics, Scarlet is the person he chooses to take with him, rather than a family member or older friend.

• Junior High: Scarlet is there, and Scarlet hates it.

• Kitchen Sink Included: The Dragon Hoard contains every object imaginable made of gold, including a kitchen sink. Apparently it was commissioned by someone as a joke.

• Land of One City: The Citadel definitely qualifies. It once sat amidst a fertile plain, but is now surrounded by desert. Still has room for a sizeable population, though. supposedly.

• Lethally Stupid: the infamous Chet, who opts to attack an actual dragon, despite several warnings.

• Little Professor Dialogue: Scarlet is quite prone to this, and it’s what tends to separate her from her peers.

• Long Hair Is Feminine: one of the early clues that Scarlet might be more feminine than she lets on is that she stubbornly wears her hair long, despite not taking the time to style or properly care for it.

• Loophole Abuse: Anyone under 18 can register a library card without legal identification. Scarlet uses this to check out dozens of books at a time and never pays late fees.

• Lost Superweapon: the sword Echbalder, said to be able to summon an even more powerful sword. Ironically, the location of the more powerful sword is known. But Echbalder is also an important symbol.

• Low Fantasy: With dragons and magic swords, but also middle school and suburbs.

• Luminescent Blush: Happens to Scarlet at least once a chapter. Doubles with Meaningful Name.

• Magical Library: The Great Library of Arindell. No one knows how big it is, only a tiny portion of the front is even used, and a powerful enchantment makes any book inside completely indestructible. And according to some accounts, it was already there when the first humans entered the valley.

• Middle School Is Miserable: Scarlet certainly thinks so. Her teachers hate her, the homework is unbearable, and she’s bullied every day. When the chance comes to escape, she takes it.

• Mood Whiplash: in the middle of jokes about necromancers and dying of embarassment, Scarlet's mentor and best friend has a heart attack and dies in front of her.

• Mundane Fantastic: there are dragons, necromancers, and ancient ruins being used as playgrounds. Scarlet routinely visits a magic library. She also attends middle school and has a penchant for cheeseburgers.

• Necromancer: Necromancers are an ethno-religious group with hereditary magic. They make up a sizeable enough chunk of the Arindell population that locals hardly blink an eye at reanimated bodies or spirits, knowing that necromancers are quite polite and are the type to happily help you with your gardening, while tourists tend to be more put-off.

• Non-Indicative Name: The "Slayer Dragons". Jeremy wonders why they're called that, seeing as they were neither dragons themselves nor slayers of dragons. Scarlet explains that the title is a holdover of Golden Age sentence structures; at the time, it more clearly meant the Slayer Dragons slew things for dragons.

• Non-Standard Prescription: Scarlet’s therapist prescribes one middle school dance. In theory Scarlet could go alone, but knows this would be social suicide. Fortunately, her friend Esperanza is more than happy to set her up with a blind date.

• Noodle Incident:
  • Something Scarlet talked her mother into doing inside the Library somehow got her a traffic ticket. The details are never elaborated on.
  • Something happened involving Scarlet’s dirty clothes on their last family off-world vacation. Exactly what is never elaborated upon but the mere mention is enough to get Scarlet to do her laundry.
  • Scarlet once barricaded herself in her bedroom when her mother asked if she'd like to go to summer camp. Exactly why this terrified her so much is not elaborated upon.
  • After her disastrous first date, the school somehow ends up covered in penguin poop. How is never elaborated upon. At least the gym burning down had an obvious explanation.

• No Social Skills: watch Scarlet attempt to interact with any of her peers. It’s not great.

• Order of Scholars: the New Stormwind Antiquarian Society, to which Scarlet desperately wishes to belong.

• Parents as People: Scarlet's parents both work and have social lives, but they are involved. The only reason they don't know as much about Scarlet's life is because she doesn't tell them.

• The Peeping Tom: Relend attempts to be this on Scarlet, and pays the price.

• Poverty Food: seems to be about all they serve in Gau. With imports being expensive and no refrigeration, what food is available comes from canned or dried stores.

• Quaking with Fear: when Scarlet is left tied to a post on a ritual altar as a dragon sacrifice. She manages to get untied but is so terrified she’s worried her heart will explode.

• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: discussed in passing that this works on the undead because it removes their sense of self.

• Ritual Magic: Ritual magic is the most accessible form of magic; one doesn't even need to be an actual wizard to use it, as long as one knows the precise ritual elements and actions required. That said, most books one might find at a yard sale or bookstore that cover the topic are full of fake spells; Scarlet's fairly sure The Book of Lore is the only one in her collection that outlines a real ritual, which she performs with her pets in the hopes of finding herself on a magical quest.

• Runic Magic: Scarlet owns a shark tooth necklace inscribed with a rune of protection, which she got as a souvenir on a family trip. She uses it as the "magical item" component of a ritual.

• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Scarlet’s a history wiz with a reading comprehension that would make most academics blush. But she’s having a hard time passing eighth grade and does not make friends easily. She can also barely make sense of fiction books.

• Sadist Teacher: Mrs. Winkledorf in spades, although her behavior comes more from laziness than outright sadism.

• Salt the Earth: It's mentioned that Arindell, Scarlet's home city, was razed in some previous epoch in order to keep it out of the hands of a now vanquished foe. It has since been rebuilt.

• She Cleans Up Nicely: for her first-ever date and first school dance, Scarlet puts on a new red dress picked out for her by fashion-wiz Esperanza. Though she has some concerns, she leaves the house feeling good about her looks. then it all goes horribly awry.

• Show Within a Show: Several mentions are made of The Dragons of Darkmoss, a popular novel series which Scarlet hates.

• Situational Sociability: Scarlet can generally comport herself well with adults, but doesn’t get on with other children. Probably because she uses words like “comport” all the time.

• Skipping School: Scarlet ditches whenever the opportunity arises, usually skipping out on History class if it's at the end of the day and she thinks the teacher will be mean.

• Smart People Wear Glasses: overlaps with unwanted glasses plot, but both Scarlet and her father are just nearsighted enough to need reading glasses.

• Strong Family Resemblance: its frequently noted that Scarlet and her father share the same piercing green eyes.

• Suburbia: Much of the book takes in Arindell's suburbs.

• Sundial Waypoint: The amulet Scarlet accidentally stole has a gemstone that will point to a specific spot on a map when exposed to either the morning or evening sun.

• Teens Are Monsters: the book kicks off when a bunch of teens throw a rock at the protagonist.

• The Undead: where there’s necromancers, there’s undead. They ride the bus for free, and can be seen delivering small packages on motorized scooters.

• Unexpected Inheritance: Scarlet inherits her mentor’s research materials, notes, and position within the prestigious Antiquarian Society. Keeping said inheritance ends up kicking off the main plot of the book.

• Unfazed Everyman: Roy takes the site of zombies in his home completely in stride, going so far as to casually invite the necromancer controlling said zombies to stay for dinner.

• Unwanted Glasses Plot: Scarlet needs reading glasses for small print. She refuses to bring them to school and lives in fear someone will find out.

• Virgin Sacrifice: Scarlet's alleged "friends" attempt to offer her to some red-red fire dragons beyond the fence, as dragons are said to use their magic to help those who make offerings that please them. They initially convince her to come along by claiming their plan is to make a more vague "tribute" for Intertwention Day, until Bethany asks Scarlet, "You know everything, what's the deal with dragons and virgins?"

• Wake-Up Call: When Scarlet's mentor dies at the end of the second chapter, this kicks off her quest.