{"title":"Fantasy eBooks \u0026 Book Series","description":"\u003cp\u003eEpic and dark fantasy eBooks from August Publishing House: dragons, forbidden magic, rebellion and sprawling worlds. Many titles belong to series, so look for Book 1 to start in reading order.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-knife-that-remembers","title":"The Knife That Remembers","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eA royal bodyguard who loses a piece of her memory every time she kills must uncover the identity she was carved to forget before the tyrant she protects uses her to murder the last heir of a dead god-empire—who may be herself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSera Nhal has one gift the palace fears and needs in equal measure: when she draws her black blade, people die cleanly, quickly, and often without understanding how close she came.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe cost is always the same.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery kill takes a memory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA face. A promise. A street she once knew. The sound of a voice she loved.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSera tells herself it does not matter. She was abandoned young, bought younger, and sharpened into the perfect weapon for the throne. A weapon does not need a past. It only needs a hand to point it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen a failed assassination cracks open the first hole in the lie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe empire Sera serves was built on the ashes of a holy conquest. The bloodline it claims to have erased may still live. Her missing memories were not accidental. Her blade was forged for one purpose: to keep the truth buried inside her own skull.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow the chancellor who raised the empire from famine and ruin wants her closer than ever. A rebel prince wants her dead. And a man marked for execution looks at her as if he already knows her real name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf Sera keeps killing, she may save the throne and lose herself forever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf she stops, the empire burns.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45737959653433,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/TheKnifethatRemembers_2.jpg?v=1777245995"},{"product_id":"dragons-tithe","title":"Dragon's Tithe","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen a lower-realm survivor is taken as tribute to a dragon academy where humans are\u003cbr\u003emeant to die, she upends the entire system by bonding with an ancient Elder dragon—\u003cbr\u003eforcing a kingdom built on dominance to confront the one thing it cannot control.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eElara has spent her life surviving the edge.\u003cbr\u003eClimbing where others fall. Enduring what others don’t. Staying alive in a world that was\u003cbr\u003enever meant to protect her.\u003cbr\u003eBelow the floating kingdoms, survival is a skill.\u003cbr\u003eAbove them, power is a birthright.\u003cbr\u003eThen the Tithe comes early.\u003cbr\u003eTaken from her home and delivered to the Spire of Aethelgard, Elara is thrown into a brutal\u003cbr\u003eDragon Academy, where humans are not trained—they are used.\u003cbr\u003eFuel for the system.\u003cbr\u003eTargets for the elite.\u003cbr\u003eProof that the hierarchy holds.\u003cbr\u003eMost don’t survive the first day.\u003cbr\u003eElara does.\u003cbr\u003eShe survives the climb.\u003cbr\u003eShe survives the arena.\u003cbr\u003eShe survives the dragons.\u003cbr\u003eBut survival isn’t what changes everything.\u003cbr\u003eDefiance does.\u003cbr\u003eBecause when Elara forms an impossible bond with Nyrax—an ancient Elder beast feared\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eeven by the High-Born—she doesn’t just break the rules of the Academy.\u003cbr\u003eShe breaks the foundation of their world.\u003cbr\u003eNow marked as both weapon and threat, hunted by those who fear what she represents and\u003cbr\u003ewatched by a prince who cannot ignore her, Elara is pulled into a deadly game where power\u003cbr\u003eis tested, loyalty is fragile, and control is everything.\u003cbr\u003eBecause dragons don’t choose the weak.\u003cbr\u003eAnd they don’t choose humans.\u003cbr\u003eUntil one finally does.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45778986631225,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/dragons_tithe.jpg?v=1777502779"},{"product_id":"the-king-who-drunk-the-sun","title":"The King Who Drunk The Sun","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eWhen a bastard prince survives his public execution by drinking the empire’s captive sun and becomes the most powerful being alive, he is forced to marry the war widow he made in a single blast of holy fire before the empress can turn him into a living weapon to conquer the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey dragged Prince Osric Valeen into the sun arena in chains so the empire could watch him die.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInstead, he drank the light.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor three hundred years, the rulers of Aurenne have fed prisoners, traitors, and unwanted heirs to the Crown Sun—a chained star suspended above the capital, worshipped as the source of law, harvest, and divine right. No one has ever survived the rite. No one was meant to.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow Osric is alive. Burning. Unkillable, perhaps. And suddenly more valuable than any throne.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo keep the empire’s new god-beast under control, Empress Edrienne binds him in a political marriage to Lady Elowen Vey, widow of the celebrated general Osric incinerated when his power first tore loose. Elowen has every reason to hate him. She may also be the only person who can keep him human.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the Crown Sun is starving. The empire’s peace is built on a lie. And the more power Osric takes into himself, the more the thing inside the light wants out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf he cannot master the fire in his blood, he will become the apocalypse his enemies need.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf he does master it, he may have to burn the empire down himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45791262998585,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/TheKingwhodrunktheSun.jpg?v=1777576833"},{"product_id":"the-forgotten-dragon-heir","title":"The Forgotten Dragon Heir","description":"\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eAre you tired of predictable fantasy tropes and struggling to find a genuinely gripping, cinematic epic that keeps you on the edge of your seat?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eIt can be incredibly frustrating to invest your time into a fantasy world, only to be let down by flat characters, slow pacing, and a lack of real stakes. You crave an immersive adventure loaded with complex political intrigue, dark magic, and shocking betrayals that grab you from page one and refuse to let go.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eEnter\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eThe Forgotten Dragon Heir\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e, the ultimate high-fantasy epic that shatters genre expectations. Penned by the masterful\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eProfessor Knowledge\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e, this pulse-pounding masterpiece immerses you in the perilous journey of an abandoned prince turned feared mercenary, offering a gripping tale of destiny, dark magic, and ultimate redemption.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eWhat You Will Learn Inside:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eThe Power of the Dragon Mark:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eLearn the hidden lore behind the Primordial Dragon’s mark and how the exiled Ashwalker channels this ancient power.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eMastering Political Intrigue:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eDiscover the treacherous, strategic maneuvers and deceptive tactics used by Lyra to outwit Empress Seraphine and her dark court.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eThe Cost of Dark Magic:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eUnderstand the terrifying allure and devastating consequences of \"The Void\"—the dark, consuming force threatening to annihilate the Ember Throne.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eStrategic Warfare and Battle Tactics:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eLearn the tactical combat formations, flanking maneuvers, and magical warfare strategies deployed during the 100-chapter epic clash.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eThe Anatomy of Betrayal:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eUncover the psychological motivations behind the shocking double-crosses from trusted allies and mentors that will keep you guessing at every turn.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eBuilding Unbreakable Alliances:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eSee how Kaelen and Lyra forge an unyielding coalition of fractured factions, demonstrating the true essence of leadership and unity.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eSpecial Features \/ Bonuses:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eThe Artifact’s Hidden Roadmap:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eFollow the detailed, uncharted map revealed within the ancient relic that charts a path into the unknown territories of the kingdom.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eCinematic Reading Experience:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eUniquely formatted with fast-paced, script-like visual cues (such as \"HARD CUT TO BLACK\" and \"TEXT ON SCREEN\") that make the reading experience feel like a blockbuster movie.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eStrategic Battle Plans:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eIncludes detailed tactical discussions and war-room strategies plotted by the rebel alliances to overthrow the Empress.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eExclusive Vista-Flix Prequel:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eGet a first-hand look at the foundational lore that inspired the highly anticipated movie adaptation!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eWho is this eBook for?:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eEpic Fantasy Aficionados:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eReaders who crave deep, immersive world-building, ancient prophecies, and high-stakes magical warfare.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eFans of Political Thrillers:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eAnyone who loves complex courtly deception, double agents, and storylines driven by shifting allegiances and shocking betrayals.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eAction \u0026amp; Adventure Enthusiasts:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eReaders looking for a fast-paced, cinematic narrative loaded with pulse-pounding combat, powerful magic, and heroic redemption arcs.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eDownload your copy of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eThe Forgotten Dragon Heir\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etoday, step into the shadows, and awaken the dragon within!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eProduct Details:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eFormat:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eInstant PDF Download\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eProfessor Knowledge\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45881640255545,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/Theforgottendragonheir2.jpg?v=1779645098"},{"product_id":"dragon-s-tithe-book-2","title":"Dragon’s Tithe Book 2","description":"\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eAre you tired of predictable fantasy tropes and struggling to find a genuinely gripping, dark survival epic that keeps you on the edge of your seat?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eIt can be incredibly frustrating to invest your time into a fantasy world, only to be let down by flat magic systems, slow pacing, and a lack of true, life-or-death stakes. You crave a visceral, immersive adventure loaded with terrifying beasts, gritty tactical warfare, and raw, world-breaking magic that grabs you from page one and refuses to let go.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eEnter\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eDragon’s Tithe Book 2\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e, the ultimate dark fantasy survival epic that completely shatters genre expectations. Penned by the masterful\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eProfessor Knowledge\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(featuring the brilliant world-building of Jeff Kemmer), this pulse-pounding masterpiece immerses you in the perilous journey of Elara, a lower-realm slum survivor who must harness the volatile soul of an ancient Elder god to fight back against an oppressive, mechanized Elven empire.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eWhat You Will Learn Inside:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eMastering Tectonic Magic:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eExperience the awe-inspiring power of the \"god-fire\" and discover how Elara wields kinetic gravity and magma to shatter the earth itself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eNavigating the Underworld:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eExplore the deadly, bioluminescent depths of \"The Hollows\" and learn the harsh survival mechanics required to cross the razor-sharp glass dunes of the Ash Wastes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eTactical Survival and Warfare:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eDiscover how slum-architect Finn and his ragtag crew use brilliant, gritty guerrilla tactics to outmaneuver the highly advanced Elven Vanguard Sentinels.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eThe Cost of Divine Power:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eDive deep into the intense psychological battle between human resilience, family loyalty, and the corrupting, apathetic consciousness of the Elder god Nyrax.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eEpic Monster Confrontations:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eWitness heart-stopping, cinematic battles against terrifying beasts—from taming a colossal Storm-Wyvern to surviving a twisted, mechanical Vanguard Chimera.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eSpecial Features \/ Bonuses:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eCinematic Script-Style Formatting:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eUniquely formatted with fast-paced visual cues (such as \"SCENE 1\" and scene transitions) that make the reading experience feel like an action-packed blockbuster movie.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eIntricate World-Building Details:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eDelve into the detailed, high-stakes tactical plans, Elven cartography, and subterranean geography plotted by the resistance.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eExclusive Vista-Flix Teaser:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eGet a first-hand look at the thrilling, foundational narrative that inspired the highly anticipated major motion picture adaptation coming soon to Vista-Flix!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eWho is this eBook for?:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eDark Fantasy \u0026amp; Sci-Fantasy Fans:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eReaders who crave gritty, immersive world-building where ancient magic violently collides with mechanized, sci-fi Elven technology.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eLovers of Underdog Rebellion Stories:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eAnyone captivated by slum survivors, tactical masterminds, and found families fighting back against an unstoppable, god-like empire.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eAction \u0026amp; Adventure Enthusiasts:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eReaders looking for a fast-paced, cinematic narrative loaded with pulse-pounding combat, terrifying monsters, and high-stakes survival.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eDownload your copy of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eDragon’s Tithe Book 2\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etoday, harness the god-fire, and join the rebellion against the Elven Empire!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eProduct Details:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eFormat:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eInstant PDF Download\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cstrong class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eJeff Kemmer\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45881688096825,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/Dragon_sTithe.jpg?v=1779646598"},{"product_id":"saint-of-wolves","title":"Saint of Wolves","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eA New Orleans homicide detective hunting a string of staged animal-maul murders is forced to trust the wolf-blood heir she should arrest when the bodies form a ritual map beneath the French Quarter—and their forbidden bond may be the final key needed to raise the thing his family has kept buried for two centuries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time Detective Esmée Vigne reaches the alley, the victim is already in pieces.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe patrol cops call it another animal attack. Esmée knows better. Real animals don’t leave symbols in blood. Real animals don’t tear out the same bone from every body. And real animals do not drag the dead toward old stone no city record admits exists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen the prime suspect saves her life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThierry Marrow is rich, brutal, impossible to read, and tied to every crime scene in ways no innocent man can explain. His confession should end the case. Instead, it rips it open. He is the last living heir of a wolf-blooded house once sworn to guard New Orleans from a hunger buried beneath the Quarter. Someone is recreating an old summoning rite. Someone inside the city wants the lock broken. And Esmée’s scent, her blood, her very presence around Thierry is changing the pattern.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow every hour brings another body, another lie from City Hall, another reason to put a bullet in the man she cannot stop wanting. Because if Thierry is telling the truth, the monster beside her is not the thing she should fear most.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe is what stands in front of it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45967353249849,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/saintofwolves.jpg?v=1781737091"},{"product_id":"saint-of-the-deep","title":"Saint of the Deep: Saint of Wolves Book 2","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 11pt; text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003eAs New Orleans begins to fail from the wounds under its streets, a ruined detective and the guardian she refused to sacrifice must uncover the city’s original bargain before its hidden rulers turn them—or the people they love—into the next seal.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;\"\u003eWeeks after the chamber collapse, New Orleans is outwardly recovering and privately rotting. Flooding patterns shift where they should not, power and transit failures cluster around old routes, people vanish near forgotten church properties, and the city’s buried machinery begins answering pressure from below. Esmée, blamed for the overpass disaster and tainted by Delia’s death, is forced into hiding near Saint Mercy with Thierry, Odette, Junie, and Milo. She can no longer work as a detective, but she also cannot stop investigating—especially when signs suggest that Alphonse’s death removed only one operator, not the system behind him.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;\"\u003eThierry’s survival creates a second crisis. Contact with the breach has altered him: his instincts sharpen, his control frays under stress, and the bond with Esmée grows more reactive, intimate, and dangerous. Odette believes the breach is testing the weakened lock through him as much as through the city itself. When fragments of Father Noe’s missing records and traces of August Vigne’s hidden archive point toward a broader map of old civic sites, Esmée realizes the original pact was never confined to one chamber. The seal was part of a larger order in which political stability, economic growth, and controlled sacrifice were intertwined.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;\"\u003eAt the same time, a surviving cover-up faction embedded in city institutions moves aggressively. Their goal is not to heal the breach but to stabilize it cheaply: control the narrative, discredit Esmée, capture Thierry, and force a substitute ritual before the city’s decay becomes impossible to hide. Savard becomes part of the pressure—not necessarily as a true believer, but as an institutional actor willing to choose order over truth. Milo and Junie, now impossible to send back to ordinary life, become both assets and targets as they push for agency instead of protection.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;\"\u003eThe search for a permanent solution leads Esmée and Thierry into the truth August died carrying: the old system endured because every generation accepted that love meant offering someone up. Book 2’s climax turns on whether Esmée and Thierry will repeat that logic—through Thierry’s martyrdom, Esmée’s self-sacrifice, or Milo’s exploitation—or break it and attempt a more dangerous, unproven resealing based on mutual consent rather than managed loss. They may stop the city from choosing a false solution, but doing so exposes a larger war over what New Orleans is built to feed, and what it would become if the old machinery were truly denied.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45971510624313,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/saintoftheDeep.jpg?v=1781737517"},{"product_id":"the-dry-earth-lock-saint-of-wolves-book-3","title":"The Dry-Earth Lock: Saint of Wolves Book 3","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen a lock beneath dry inland earth answers the one they awakened in New Orleans, Esmée and Thierry find a town that treats martyrdom as holy—and sees their corpse-free cure as a threat worth killing for.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the aftermath of Pump Station Nine, Esmée, Thierry, Milo, Junie, Odette, and their uneasy police allies live with a victory that has made them more visible, not safer. Milo is alive but traumatized, Junie’s leaks have fractured the official story without defeating it, Thierry’s marked body now feels distant locks like wounds under his skin, and Esmée cannot pretend that the brass key, August’s legacy, or Delia’s contested memory belong only to New Orleans. When Savard risks what remains of his authority to help recover August’s cold-room locker, the cache reveals a missing section of the regional map, a name August feared, and evidence that at least one inland lock has been maintained through voluntary generational sacrifice rather than overt coercion.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe trail leads to a drought-scarred parish where the land should be dead but isn’t. Beneath fields, courthouses, irrigation ditches, land offices, and church suppers, Esmée’s blood and Thierry’s marks sense the impossible: sea-pressure under dry earth. The town reveres its guardian line as saints, especially the current heir, who has been raised to believe that dying for the lock is the purest form of civic love. The local witness-descendant wants nothing to do with inherited duty, a young listener is treated as a holy instrument, and a drought-board matriarch guards the bargain through land deeds, relief funds, parish archives, and communal denial.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEsmée arrives intending to prevent another death, but she quickly learns that this lock’s corruption is not identical to New Orleans. The townspeople are not merely victims of a hidden Board; many have built identity, economy, and faith around a beautiful lie. Junie’s instinct to expose everything collides with the danger of detonating a fragile community. Milo demands agency before anyone asks him to listen. Thierry is shaken by the rival guardian’s serene hunger for martyrdom, seeing the version of himself Odette nearly completed. Meanwhile, Maëlle, Roussel, and Lemaire remain alive and useful to the system, and Board agents race to claim the inland lock before Esmée can prove the true method again.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe central crisis becomes not whether Esmée can stop a sacrifice, but whether she has the right—or the wisdom—to bring New Orleans’ hard-won answer to a place whose wound is older, quieter, and socially sanctified. To save the guardian without becoming another custodian, Esmée and Thierry must learn what consent means when an entire town has been taught to call inheritance choice.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLove sounded like tires leaving the driveway.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNot the engine. The engine could cough, stall, change its mind. A hand could still cut the key. A man could still look through the kitchen glass and remember what waited inside.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTires did not lie.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEveryone said August Vigne was devoted. To the city. To the records. To the sealed rooms where careful men kept New Orleans from eating itself alive. At church, women touched my shoulder and told me I should be proud. At school, teachers said his name softly, like duty made absence holy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI knew what absence was.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI was nine years old, barefoot on cold tile, with Milo burning against my chest and a thermometer blinking red in my hand. His sweat had soaked through my nightgown. His breath came too fast against my neck. The phone cord looped my ankle because I had called the emergency number on the fridge until my finger hurt.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNo one answered.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDaddy had promised he was only going to the porch.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough the back door glass, I watched him stop under the light. His shirt hung open at the throat. His work satchel pulled one shoulder low. For one second, his eyes found mine.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy mouth opened.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNothing came out.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMilo whimpered. His small fingers dug into my collarbone.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAugust lifted his hand. Not enough to be a wave. Too much to be nothing.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen he crossed the yard, got in the car, and backed out with the headlights off.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShells cracked under his tires.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThat sound raised me.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAfter that, I learned how to cool a fever with wet towels. How to lie to adults who asked when our father would be home. How to sign forms with a steady hand. How to sleep with one ear open for Milo’s breathing and the other for an engine turning over outside.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBy twelve, I could hear leaving before it happened.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBy sixteen, I stopped waiting at windows.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBy twenty-five, I wore a badge and told myself law was the opposite of August. Law stayed. Law named the dead. Law made men answer for what they took.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnother lie.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe city took Delia and tried to file her clean. Took the blood off her name. Took the shape of her laugh and pressed it into a report built for cowards. Even now, when I see her funeral card, my palms go numb before I can breathe.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNot because she died.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBecause I lived.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAugust was dead by then. Milo had been strapped into machines built by people who knew our blood better than our birthdays. Thierry had almost fed himself to the dark under New Orleans because everyone who loved him had taught him that dying could be useful.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd me?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI kept running toward screams.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI called it rescue. I called it duty. I told myself if I got there fast enough, no one I loved could become a taillight shrinking in the dark.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen Pump Station Nine broke open.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe lock had never wanted a corpse. Men wanted that. Boards wanted that. Families wanted it once death became a tool they could hand down and call sacred.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThierry and I chose each other alive, and the old thing under New Orleans answered.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor one breath, I thought we had won.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDays later, in a borrowed safehouse, I pressed August’s brass key into the burn across my palm. Delia’s funeral card lay beside my father’s folded map. Milo slept badly in the next room. Thierry was on the floor with black route-lines moving under his skin.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe boards under my feet knocked once.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy heart hit my ribs.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThere was no water beneath that house.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStill, far inland, something knocked back.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45973783216185,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/lock.png?v=1781806431"},{"product_id":"ashes-of-the-fallen-realm","title":"Ashes of the Fallen Realm","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen a blacksmith’s daughter learns her vanished mother helped doom an ancient dragon kingdom and that her own blood can wake the last living wyrms, she becomes the prize at the heart of a rebellion as exiled knights and hidden spies race to use her against the tyrant king who has built his empire on forbidden ash-magic.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBrynne Calder has spent her life in a forge at the edge of the world, hammering iron beside a father who never says her mother’s name.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen the king’s riders burn her village looking for a girl with a scar shaped like a crown.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBy dawn, Brynne is running with a band of outlawed knights, a dead rebel messenger at her feet, and one impossible truth in her blood: she carries the lost dragon-oath of the Fallen Realm, the shattered kingdom the crown erased from history.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe rebels want a symbol. The exiles want a queen. The king wants her alive long enough to chain the last dragons to his war.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut the deeper Brynne is dragged into the uprising, the worse the truth becomes. Her mother was no martyr. She was one of the architects of the old realm’s destruction. And the prophecy now gathering armies around Brynne may not promise salvation at all. It may be a map back to the same fire that ruined the world the first time.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTo break a tyrant, Brynne must decide what to inherit: her mother’s guilt, the rebels’ hope, or the dragons’ hunger.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45973879357497,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/AshesoftheFallenRealm.jpg?v=1781814437"},{"product_id":"the-beacon-mountains-ashes-of-the-fallen-realm-book-2","title":"The Beacon Mountains: Ashes of the Fallen Realm Book 2","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen three mountain beacons answer Varesh’s awakening, Brynne must reach them before crown remnants, rebel splinters, and oath-bound guardians turn the freed dragon into the cornerstone of a deadlier realm.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBook 2 begins in the direct aftermath of Emberwake’s collapse. Brynne is alive but blood-burned, bonded to Varesh, and fleeing with Prince Orenn as the fortress burns behind them. Below, Tarin and Calde must escape through the ruins while Maelor’s leaderless rebels and surviving crown forces converge, and Ysoria’s fate remains uncertain after she stayed behind, wounded, to prevent Orenn from becoming a hostage-story. The realm has not been liberated so much as decapitated: Theskar is dead, Maelor is gone, the rebellion is splintering, and the public ash-memory of Emberwake’s crimes has ignited panic, denial, vengeance, and worship in equal measure.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVaresh drives Brynne toward the three fires burning in the eastern mountains, insisting they are old signals meant for dragons, not humans. At the first beacon, Brynne encounters the Keepers of the First Signal, an oath-bound mountain confederacy descended from houses that survived the Fallen Realm by guarding sealed vault roads. The Keepers claim the road network is destabilizing after Emberwake’s destruction, and that Brynne’s blood must be surrendered willingly to stabilize it before other dragons wake in rage. They do not speak like Theskar or Maelor, but their logic is familiar: one life, one bloodline, one sacrifice to preserve order.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs Brynne moves between beacon factions, each citadel offers a different truth. One faction believes dragons must be freed at any human cost. Another believes the roads must be claimed before crown remnants or rebels do. A third claims Elara Vale once helped design a containment plan that is now failing. Elara’s shadow grows sharper: she may have lit one of the signals, may be trying to prevent a catastrophe, and may still be willing to use Brynne to finish what began at Barrow Keth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMeanwhile, Orenn’s presence threatens every negotiation. To crown loyalists he is the last legitimate royal body; to rebels he is a hostage; to mountain houses he is proof that crowns always return. Tarin’s survival also becomes dangerous when rumors spread that his blood can open lesser roads. Brynne’s central struggle is no longer simply refusing ownership, but deciding what responsibility remains after refusal. If she will not be queen, weapon, saint, or sacrifice, can she still lead others through the consequences of the power she helped wake?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe book builds toward the revelation that the beacon network is not merely summoning Varesh—it is waking the buried choices of the Fallen Realm. Unless Brynne can uncover who controls the First Signal and what Elara truly sealed beneath the mountains, the dragon roads will become the foundation of a new empire before the old one’s ashes cool.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45973983035449,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/Beacons.jpg?v=1781821867"},{"product_id":"the-kindling-throne","title":"The Kindling Throne","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 11pt; text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;\"\u003eWhen a death warden’s daughter exposes her forbidden power to wake dragons from the living, she must cross a war-torn realm to find the dragon born from her murdered mother’s last promise before priest-bankers, vault-lords, and a beautiful spy turn her grief into the next imperial crown.\u003cbr style=\"mso-special-character: line-break;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003eIn the Nine Reaches of Auveth, dragons are not ridden by the worthy. They are harvested from the dead.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003eEvery person who dies holding an unbroken oath gives one last breath. That breath hardens into kindling. From kindling comes a dragon, carrying a shard of the dead soul and the promise they failed to keep. The Ashen Conclave owns the dying. The Korrin vault-lords cage the unborn. Crowns rise, marriages bind, and traitors burn because every oath in Auveth has teeth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003eSable Nhar was raised to sit beside death and collect what the powerful call theirs. She knows better than to love anything she cannot bury.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003eThen she saves a dying soldier by doing the impossible.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003eShe wakes his dragon while he is still alive.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003eNow every faction in the Reaches wants the girl named in a forbidden prophecy: the Unkindled. Sable wants only one thing—the dragon born from her mother’s final oath.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003e*I’ll come back to you.*\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003eHer guide is Kest Vask, a smiling spy with a knife in every truth. He has orders to deliver her alive.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 9.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt;\"\u003eAnd the longer he protects her, the more ruinous that order becomes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46033714774073,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/TheKindlingThrone.png?v=1782087155"},{"product_id":"the-hollow-crown-war","title":"The Hollow Crown War","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe shattered death-cathedral of Veyrith becomes the first battlefield of the crownless age. Witnesses carry competing versions of Sable’s act across the Reaches: to some she is the Unkindled liberator who exposed a death economy built on theft; to others she is the girl who murdered succession, loosed plague-fire, and woke whatever waits beneath the world. As the Ashen Conclave fractures and Korrin vault-lords move to contain the scandal, reports arrive of imperial sparks striking common people and old oath-bound places. A bell in one town begins naming heirs. A child’s bones glow with crown-law. A dead bridge demands fealty. Villages sheltering awakened living dragons are marked for harvest, execution, or forced coronation.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSable, bonded to a starving and unstable Solace, cannot flee back into secrecy. She also refuses to become queen, saint, or weapon. Instead, she chooses the harder path: reach the spark-touched before the factions do, sever or quiet the crown-fragments, and protect the living proof that death need not be owned. Tavi’s knowledge of Korrin mechanisms, Syth’s underworld routes, and Jorren’s battered honor become essential, but every ally carries consequences. Solace’s hunger risks turning rescue into devastation. Sable’s gift still costs memory. And Kest, fevered, injured, and still marked by Odran’s wounded oath, knows the claimant networks well enough to save them—while remaining a danger Sable cannot fully trust.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen Odran reappears, no longer merely a polished political manipulator but a breath-altered claimant able to awaken fragments of imperial command in spark-touched bodies, the conflict escalates from chaos to war. He offers frightened cities the thing Sable will not: order, succession, and a crown that can punish doubt. Rival claimants answer with private armies. Conclave priests declare the sparks a succession plague caused by Sable. Ulm Rask and the Korrin vault-lords seek to seize both Sable and the afflicted before the deeper vault secrets surface.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs the crew moves from Reach to Reach, each rescue reveals that the crown-oath did not simply break outward—it cracked downward. The Hollow beneath the Reaches is listening through old dragon bone, and the imperial war may be only the surface consequence of a much older prison failing. Sable must decide whether a broken crown can be made harmless, whether freedom can survive without a throne to enforce it, and whether love can exist beside Kest when his body may still be turned against her.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46038568861753,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/crown.jpg?v=1782152503"},{"product_id":"the-stone-country-knock","title":"The Stone-Country Knock","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen a lock beneath quarry stone begins answering copied voices, Esmée must prove that an echo is not consent before Roussel teaches the hunger to open for the dead, the absent, and the stolen.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe victory at Saint Calais has left no one cleanly saved. Lucien is alive but blamed by those who needed his death to mean rain; Céleste holds the release page but must govern a town trained to fear refusal; Noé is free of the ribbon but not of the voice Roussel stole from him. Before Esmée's circle can stabilize the parish, August's map flares again. The strongest answer comes from stone country, where a lock beneath abandoned quarries and old company towns knocks in patterns Thierry can feel in his bones and Milo can hear as a false version of stop.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRoussel arrives first under emergency infrastructure authority authorized by Savard's compromised code. With Junie's archive shell and listener-pattern extractions, he begins testing whether copied consent can become ritually persuasive when amplified through echo chambers, sirens, mine shafts, memorial ceremonies, and official records. The stone-country lock is unlike New Orleans's pump system or Saint Calais's deed-bound drought rite. It remembers pressure, blasting, collapse, buried wages, names carved after death, and voices returning from rock changed by the chamber that held them. In this ecology, source identity is harder to prove because every true sound comes back altered.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEsmée must pursue without repeating the mistake the dry-earth lock named in her: if she treats Milo, Noé, or the stone-country children as people to be saved by force, she risks making herself another custodian. Milo, terrified that his own boundaries have become enemy tools, insists on defining how and when he listens. Junie must counter her stolen archive without corrupting the public record so badly that truth becomes indistinguishable from strategy. Thierry, still wounded and route-marked, discovers that the stone guardian line can recognize him before he recognizes them, tempting him toward a larger guardian network that may be cure, trap, or door.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe new local allies are compromised by their own inheritance: a guardian descended from a quarry disaster survivor, a witness-heir whose family name is carved into memorial stone without consent, a retired mine recorder with duplicate blast ledgers, and a child listener trained to hear echoes instead of routes. Together they must contest Roussel's central experiment: making a copied no, wait, or yes sound official enough, communal enough, and ancient enough that the lock accepts it before the living source can object.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe book turns on whether Esmée's circle can authenticate living refusal in a place built to preserve echoes. They may stop Roussel's first deployment, but the attempt reveals that the regional Board is no longer merely demanding sacrifice; it is learning to manufacture consent at scale.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46042214531129,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/The_Stone_Country_Knock.jpg?v=1782234258"},{"product_id":"saint-of-wolves-4-ebooks","title":"Saint of Wolves (4 Ebooks)","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe fear was never that my mother would die.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt was hearing her at the door and knowing the night had just gotten worse.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn daylight, people adored her. She could pull her mouth into a sad little smile, touch a wrist, lower her voice, and make strangers feel cruel for doubting her. Teachers said she was trying. Church women said life had not been kind to her. Men offered rides, groceries, money, mercy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey got ten polished minutes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI got the key missing the lock at one in the morning.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI knew the sounds. Metal scraping. A shoulder hitting the frame. The pause before the first step. From that alone, I could tell if she was drunk, high, furious, or so gone she might look right at me and see a wall.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe night I still carry was summer-hot and airless. Milo had fallen asleep on the couch with the television flashing blue over his face. I was fourteen, stirring boxed macaroni, telling myself the same lie I always told: if food was ready, maybe she would eat; if she ate, maybe she would sleep; if she slept, maybe nothing in the apartment would get broken.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen headlights slid across the kitchen wall.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy stomach dropped.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI got to the door before she did. The hall smelled like wet concrete and stale beer. One shoe was gone. Mascara had bled under her eyes. Somebody else’s smoke clung to her hair. When she saw me, she smiled like I was the answer to a question she had forgotten asking.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Baby.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen she fell into me.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHer weight slammed the breath out of my chest. The smell hit next. Liquor. Sweat. Sweet rot under cheap perfume. Milo woke up crying in the next room while I dragged her inside with both arms locked around her ribs.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI got her to the bathroom.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThat part never left my hands.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHer wrist slipping through my grip. Her shoulder striking the tub. Tile biting through my knees. I held her hair while she vomited between us, hot and sour, and the plastic shower curtain stuck to my bare arm in the steam. She was crying by then, but not because Milo was sobbing for her. Not because I was fourteen and kneeling in her mess.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBecause she had lost an earring.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI found it under the toilet.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA tiny gold hoop. Warm from the floor.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe looked at it in my palm and laughed. Clear. Mean. Awake in the worst way.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen she said, “This city eats what you leave unattended.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI did not know if she meant herself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYears later, I still thought she meant me.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAfter that, childhood narrowed into chores and waiting. Good mornings that made fools of us. School lunches packed like apologies. Then the vanishings. Calls to hospitals. Long sits outside county lockup. Men in and out. Bills tucked under sugar bowls. I learned how to sign forms, stretch groceries, lie to teachers, and keep Milo behind me when the door opened.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen she died, everyone got gentle.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey said she loved us. They said addiction was an illness. At the funeral, women who had never climbed our stairs held my face and called me strong.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy throat tightened so hard I thought I might choke.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStrong was what people called a girl nobody came back for.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSo I built my life around what could not charm me. Reports. Timelines. Evidence. I learned how to make a room surrender the truth it was hiding. I learned to trust blood before tears, paper before promises, the body before the mouth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhat hurt me taught me one rule: need is not love.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhat I feared becoming was simpler. A woman who mistakes rescuing someone for being chosen by them.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhat life had already taken felt simpler still. Rest. Trust. The right to hear a door open without bracing.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd still, some hard stupid part of me wanted one thing that would stay.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe night before the first body dropped in the Quarter, my phone buzzed just after midnight.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eUnknown number.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI almost let it ring.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen I answered, and a man I had never heard before said, “Detective Vigne, if your brother walks home alone tonight, he won’t make it there.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46044306669625,"sku":null,"price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/SaintofWolves.png?v=1782312115"},{"product_id":"the-veilborn-throne-series-bundle","title":"The Veilborn Throne (Series Bundle)","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor seven centuries, the six races of Vaelthyr have survived behind living walls of blood, thorn, moonstone, ironroot, starlight, and fire.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe walls were called mercy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey were prisons.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen a vampire hunting party crosses illegally into the fairy realm, dawn leaves one fairy prince dead, one sacred grove butchered, and one vampire heir chained at a human gate with blood on his mouth and an hour missing from his mind.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAuren Talspar, heir to the human war command, is ordered to break him.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePrince Liozhar Nocten, elegant, starving, and guilty of everything except murder, refuses to confess to a crime that would ignite the world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen a fairy curse hidden in Liozhar’s blood drags them both into the dead prince’s final memory. Auren sees human flame at the murder scene.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHis own realm was there first.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNow captor and prisoner must hunt the truth through courts, war camps, poisoned forests, and bleeding walls. But their bond awakens something older than law.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA child.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA throne.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd a choice no kingdom should own.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46112682278969,"sku":null,"price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/TheVeilbornThrone_TheOldRoomsofNoctyraBook4.jpg?v=1784047666"},{"product_id":"the-veilborn-throne","title":"The Veilborn Throne","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cb id=\"docs-internal-guid-628a221c-7fff-5d37-436d-77f824209e0e\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen a human war-prince captures the vampire heir found beside a murdered fairy royal, their interrogation becomes a forbidden blood-bond, and the child born from it becomes the living prophecy six realms will burn down the world to possess.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor seven centuries, the six races of Vaelthyr have survived behind living walls of blood, thorn, moonstone, ironroot, starlight, and fire.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe walls were called mercy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey were prisons.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen a vampire hunting party crosses illegally into the fairy realm, dawn leaves one fairy prince dead, one sacred grove butchered, and one vampire heir chained at a human gate with blood on his mouth and an hour missing from his mind.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAuren Talspar, heir to the human war command, is ordered to break him.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePrince Liozhar Nocten, elegant, starving, and guilty of everything except murder, refuses to confess to a crime that would ignite the world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen a fairy curse hidden in Liozhar’s blood drags them both into the dead prince’s final memory. Auren sees human flame at the murder scene.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHis own realm was there first.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNow captor and prisoner must hunt the truth through courts, war camps, poisoned forests, and bleeding walls. But their bond awakens something older than law.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA child.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA throne.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd a choice no kingdom should own.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46131256787001,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/TheVeilbornThrone.png?v=1782752032"},{"product_id":"the-dark-roads-of-kharzug","title":"The Dark Roads of Kharzug, The Veilborn Throne Book 2","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cb id=\"docs-internal-guid-702f573b-7fff-b4c8-ec18-9f59a403da2e\"\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eMy mother was most dangerous when she said my name gently.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA shouted order could be survived. A cracked storm rod. A fist on a table. A command barked across the training yard with soldiers watching and dust in their teeth. Those things had edges I understood.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGentleness had no edge.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt slid in clean.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe army thought I was blessed. Veyra Talspar’s chosen son. Ironroot’s bright weapon. The boy who could hold storm in split palms and not make a sound. They saw her hand settle on my shoulder and called it pride.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey did not feel her fingers dig.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey did not see Pell watching from the fence, one brace strap loose, jaw tight enough to crack. He saw what they missed. He always had. He knew the difference between being loved and being shaped.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Don’t let her make a banner out of you,” he told me once.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI laughed because I was twelve and afraid.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThat was before the pillar.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVeyra had put me in the center of the yard with no rod, no salt line, no rest. Break the stone, she ordered. Break it clean.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI tried.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStorm crawled under my skin and found nowhere to go. My palms split. Blood ran down my wrists. The soldiers shifted in the heat thrown off my body, but no one stepped forward.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNo one but Pell.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHe limped into the ring like he was late to supper, hair stuck to his damp forehead, one hand raised in that stupid way he had, as if he could charm a blade into turning blunt.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Auren needs rest,” he said.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNine words.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe whole yard tightened.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVeyra looked at him, then at me. Her face did not change. That was how I knew.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Auren,” she said, soft as a kiss.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy chest locked. The storm answered before I chose. It burst out of me white-blue and wrong. Pell shoved me backward. Stone split with a sound like a bone breaking in a giant’s mouth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen the pillar came down.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDust filled my nose. Blood flooded my tongue where my teeth had cut it. I heard men yelling, felt grit under my nails, smelled hot stone and burned leather, tasted iron as I pushed myself up.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell lay under the broken half of the pillar.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHis leg was turned the wrong way. His brace had snapped. One buckle spun slowly on the ground beside him, bright in the dust. He stared at it like he could not understand how such a small thing had betrayed him.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen he made one thin sound.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy throat closed around his name.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAfterward, they called it an accident. A training surge. A child’s power misjudged. Veyra signed the report. The officers repeated it. The yard was swept clean before supper.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell learned to walk with pain.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI learned to obey faster.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYears passed in iron pieces. Rod drills. Border maps. Orders folded into sealed dispatches. Pell’s laugh getting louder whenever his leg hurt. My body turning into something the army could aim. Veyra’s hand on my shoulder in front of men who still mistook ownership for pride.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI became her commander. Her finest work. Her answer to every wall.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd some ruined part of me still wanted her to mean my name kindly.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThat was what I hated most. Not the fear. Not even the obedience. The wanting. The small, starving hope that one day she would say Auren and not be reaching for a knife.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell saw that too.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell stayed anyway.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen he died beneath Kharzug, driving his broken brace into the altar built to cut me open. He died in storm-fire and forge heat so I could choose with no command inside my skull. His blood slicked the stone beneath me. My child breathed against my chest, silent and warm, while every Veilwall in Vaelthyr went dark.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAcross the forge-heart, Veyra stepped over the cooling blood of her son.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe looked at Eidren in my arms.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen she said my name gently.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb id=\"docs-internal-guid-e6b66e11-7fff-c1b4-00ae-116adf1f03c7\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46146064384057,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/TheDarkRoads.jpg?v=1783031284"},{"product_id":"the-veilborn-throne-the-old-rooms-of-noctyra","title":"The Veilborn Throne: The Old Rooms of Noctyra","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cb id=\"docs-internal-guid-120919d7-7fff-48b9-068b-5ee5172b4d1a\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTo save Naevan without using Eidren, Liozhar must enter Noctyra's oldest child-storage chambers and prove release can do what dynasties have only ever trusted captivity to do.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBook 4 begins in the immediate aftermath of the Hearth's survival. Refugees arrive from the dark plain, burned witnesses lose pieces of themselves, and Eidren's seventh spark continues to answer distant names with a warmth no adult fully understands. But Naevan's thread is failing in its consent-bound harbor. Maven, Vaust, and Liozhar can hold him outside storage for only so long before the old rooms begin pulling through blood, nursery cadence, and family need. When signs from Noctyra reveal that Naevan's body is alive but being moved into deeper pre-dynastic chambers, Liozhar accepts the one task he most fears: returning home without becoming a cradle.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe mission draws together an uneasy rescue party: Liozhar, Maven, Vaust, Korruk, Ilvei, and a constrained Serit whose knowledge of fever-bells and old-room routes is indispensable and poisonous. Drakka, too wounded for easy travel but unwilling to be made a symbol, helps shape the mission's boundary rules before Korruk leaves. Serit offers truths that may be traps. Ilvei carries broken warrant residue that can identify Crownless contamination in Noctyrian mechanisms, but her presence risks bringing Aurelian law into the rescue. Maven and Vaust must pass through commands built to move their bodies before thought. Liozhar must hear the dead royal children in his veins not as heirs to be preserved, but as witnesses asking whether survival without release is only another death.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAt the Hearth, Auren remains with Eidren, physically fragile and emotionally shaken by the command wound. He must keep refugees, Mara, Veyra's outer line, and his own desperate love from turning Eidren into infrastructure. The crownless throne whispers home through family with increasing tenderness, offering what everyone needs most: shelter for the displaced, healing for Naevan, relief for Liozhar, forgiveness for Veyra, and proof that Auren can save without harming.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn Noctyra, Nyssara reframes the old rooms as mercy. She argues that a dying realm has no luxury for consent, and that Naevan's rescue will kill more children than storage ever did. The rescue uncovers first-generation traces older than Noctyra and a rival preserved heir who proves the dynasty has always been built on hidden children. The central crisis becomes not whether Liozhar can reach Naevan, but whether he can refuse every form of preservation that would save one beloved child by teaching the old rooms a new cradle.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46183752630329,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/The_5.webp?v=1783620986"},{"product_id":"the-veilborn-throne-the-seventh-listener","title":"The Veilborn Throne: The Seventh Listener","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI learned to fear my mother’s hand before it landed.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn public, Veyra Talspar touched me like a blessing. Fingers on my shoulder. Thumb at my collar. A quiet grip at the back of my neck while soldiers watched and softened, relieved to see their commander was also a mother.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey saw care.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI felt command.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStand straight. Breathe evenly. Need nothing.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePeople called me fortunate. Pell was the wild son, all teeth and charm and broken rules. I was the kept one. The clean one. The boy beside the Ironroot maps with polished boots and a mother close enough to guide him.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNo one saw how guidance became a cage when the hand never left.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe memory that made me was small enough to fit in a cup.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI was eight, maybe nine. Pell had stolen honey cakes from the winter storeroom and blamed a kitchen boy with one twisted foot. I knew because Pell had split one with me behind the ash bins. The cake had stuck to my teeth. His laugh had been warm against my ear.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen Veyra questioned us, the kitchen boy stood by the hearth with his cap crushed in both hands. Scorched milk skinned in a pot behind him. Smoke scratched my throat. A fly crawled around the lip of a brass bowl.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell looked straight at our mother and lied.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy stomach clenched. He tapped his heel against the stone.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOnce. Twice. Three times.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOur code.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDon’t break.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVeyra turned to me. Her fingers found my shoulder. Not hard. Never hard enough for witnesses to flinch.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Tell me cleanly, Auren.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe kitchen boy’s bad foot dragged as he shifted. His breath caught so softly I almost missed it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI looked at Pell.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHe smiled like truth was a fence and we were fast.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI told the truth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe room went still. Pell’s face emptied first. Then Veyra lifted a cup of milk from the table and set it in my hands. Warm clay. Slick rim. White skin trembling on top.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Useful truth still costs,” she said.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe made me carry it to the kitchen boy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHe drank with both hands shaking. Outside, Pell was whipped for theft and false witness. I heard every strike through the kitchen wall. The cup stayed warm in my palms long after it was empty.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThat was the lesson.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTruth could save one child and break another. Love could look away. A mother could call it order. A brother could stop knocking at your door.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAfter that, people praised my honesty. Veyra learned where to place her hand when she wanted a clean answer. Pell forgave me in scraps, then took the scraps back when pain made him cruel. I learned to stand still while someone suffered and wait to be told which hurt mattered more.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYears passed. The world found larger rooms for the same lesson.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell died. Eidren came into my arms warm and impossible. Every wall darkened. Every old power turned its face toward the child I held.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd my hands remembered.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHold still.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHold close.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHold safe.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHold.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOne word. Too many teeth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNow they called me restrained. The parent who would not spend his child. The vessel who refused miracles while refugees froze and bled. They saw my loose hold on Eidren and thought it was strength.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey did not feel my bones fighting to lock.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey did not know how badly I wanted one clean answer. One breath that did not cost another. One mercy no room, throne, law, or mother could turn into a leash.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNaevan lay on quarantine cloth, breathing like each breath had been borrowed from something that wanted payment. Hungry children slept around cold coals. Refugees watched Eidren’s warmth and tried not to beg.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI had already lost Pell to truth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI would not lose Eidren to love.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen the failed wall above the Hearth began to sing.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46196023689273,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/The_9.webp?v=1783887380"}],"url":"https:\/\/augustpublishinghouse.com\/collections\/fantasy-ebooks.oembed","provider":"August Publishing House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}