Conscience
Before Loyalty
Bane of All Things is an adult epic fantasy that pits conscience against loyalty and faith against truth, without going all grimdark. There are flavours of McClellan’s Powder Mage series and Howard’s Solomon Kane, garnished with Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone.
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Bane of All Things begins what is planned to be a four-part series titled A Silence of Worlds. Book 2, The Crucible Tree, is in progress.
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“When conscience clashes with loyalty, and faith with truth, even an outcast can
bring the world to its knees.”
In the Four Kingdoms, the Holy Clerisy preaches that the gods are dead, and prayer is the path to Hell. Anyone who defies doctrine is punished for heresy. But blind faith can damn a soul as surely as betrayal.
Ryn Ruscroft, once sworn to serve as the Clerisy’s loyal soldier, finds himself torn between conscience and duty one bitter winter’s night. Those slain include his best friend, felled by his own hand.
Josalind Aumbrae has been tormented all her life by the Voices and their visions—an affliction that could have her facing a witch’s pyre. If only she could understand what they want.
Banished to Dragon’s Claw Abbey at the edge of the world, Ryn and Josalind discover a place built on more than penance and forgetting. What they find at the Claw will turn them into fugitives hunted by hellspawn, heretics, and Ryn’s former commander.
But more sinister forces have awoken—ancient things eager to settle old scores and find pawns among the outcast. When they cry for vengeance, the Living Sword must have a hand to wield it. A mortal it can reshape into the Earth Breaker, the Soul Taker, the Bane of All Things.
What other authors are saying
“A winner! The setting came alive around me, I cared about the characters and wanted to know their pasts and their unfolding futures. What Ryn was hearing and learning fascinated me; I had to know more. I’ve read hundreds of fantasy tales, old and new, but the twists and turns in these pages surprised me more than once. And hooked me deeper, every time. In a lot of books, we see into a few foreground characters, and the rest remain spear-carriers. Not in this one. The reader grapples with mysteries along with them. And it all feels so real. I can’t wait for the next one.”
—Ed Greenwood, internationally-bestselling creator of The Forgotten Realms
“Visceral and vivid, Bane of All Things is a gorgeously imagined ride. I enjoyed getting to know these characters and the world of monsters and magic they inhabit. A terrific read.”
—Kate Heartfield, author of the Alice Payne series and The Embroidered Book
“A dark and engrossing epic fantasy that starts off small but just keeps building. I’m really looking forward to what comes next!”
—James Alan Gardner, author of They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded
