Acroteria: What Comes Before

For five centuries, power on Acroteria has been inherited. Crowns pass to heirs, and the elemental affinities called gifts pass from parent to child. The handful of weapons that can magnify those gifts belong to a single republic, which has guarded the secret for sixty-eight years. In the spring of 1724, the Mercer State ends that monopoly in one afternoon. In front of the continent’s envoys, a soldier born with no elemental affinity thumbs a lever on a copper-wound mace and tears a post apart from twelve feet away. In five capitals, five people who do not trust one another are quietly arranging the war that will decide what the new order looks like. Emerson Forger, a smith’s son joins the army to become the hero he watched as a boy. In the north, Karluk, who was a slave at fourteen, is finishing ten years of binding feuding tribes together by treaty instead of conquest. A young priestess carries a warning her Church would rather not hear, while a quiet investigator follows a trail of numbers nobody else will read. Elsewhere a noblewoman collects the facts that do not fit, and a commander warns a council that will not listen. Each of them are handed one true piece of the war being built around them. None of them can see it whole, and the people arranging it are counting on that. What Comes Before is the first book of Acroteria, the last year of peace and the price of losing it. What to expect A large cast across many nations. Each has a storyline of their own, and each is pulled slowly toward the same war. Magic with rules. Elemental gifts have limits and costs, and Forge weapons change who can fight. Strength is earned, and a weaker fighter with the right plan can win. Politics with real stakes. Councils, churches, merchant houses and spies, where a letter can do more damage than a sword. Fights written without flinching. People bleed, plans fail, and characters you love can die. Two timelines. Karluk’s story in the north begins years earlier and catches up with the rest. A slow build that pays off. Book One is the year before the war, and it ends the moment the peace does. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Acroteria: What Comes Before — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠