A Fire in the Heart of Knowing
There is a truth that exists at the heart of the world, that its pain was born of the first lie ever told.
A story without heroes
Mordikhaan is a realm that is slowly dying, broken by a war that tore it apart four decades ago, when its queen vanished. It produces survivors, not heroes.
A Fire in the Heart of Knowing belongs on the shelf next to Abercrombie, Lawrence, and Hobb.
Everyone is right about something
No chosen one. No clean heroes. Every character is right about something and wrong about the rest.
History didn’t end. It went underground.
A world shaped by catastrophe and held together by fear. Ancient powers, buried histories, and a vanished Queen whose shadow falls over everything.
The Thartans don’t negotiate
When the Thartans return after forty years, no one knows how to fight them. The people who did are dead. The people who remember are lying.
Book One:
The Blood of Tharta
The Thartans were defeated forty years ago and retreated into the mountains. The Queen and her Chamberlain vanished and her Steward ruled in her stead with an iron fist.
Now the Thartans have returned, awoken by a young lord and the Steward Santaris is dying. Rival houses scheme and plan their futures, their servants and thrown into bloody conflict while an ancient dark magic stirs.
Wanderers, not heroes.
Khe
A Tallfolk mercenary soldier who lives by a code of honour in a world that punishes it. In the snow and ice at the edge of the realm she sees the darkness returned.
Natayra
Daughter of Tyral, lord of Lasthaven — and sister of the young lord who crossed the Thartan border carrying a cursed ring and did not come back. When Elderne disappears at the edge of Tharta, she rides with Tyral to Yenarinvahl for answers.
Frangka
A Ghothar warrior — pulled from the brink of death by a former priest. She repays that debt by becoming his protector. Haunted by a trauma she can barely name, she reads the enemy, understands the fight and has a fearlessness born of her own scars.
Stay in the world
Lore dispatches, chapter previews, and updates on Book Two — In the Darkness of Dreaming. No noise. Just the world.
A Story from Aestis
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