Couplet

The Maker abandoned the world with one final promise: the greatest artist would inherit the divine throne. But without his will to compose it, the very fabric of the world began to come apart. Beneath the gaze of the purple sun, blight devours the land and twists the laws of nature. Monsters haunt what remains, kingdoms fight over an ever-shrinking world, and entire civilizations cross the veil into Aetrea with nowhere else to go. And Wesia has chosen its answer to the Maker’s absence. Its Emperor means to inherit the empty throne at any cost, and the Empire already lives as though his ascension were inevitable. Where chaos can still be fought, Wesia fights it. But when the whispers take root too deeply in the minds of the villagers, when paranoia turns to worship, and the Inquisitors suspect people have started making pacts with things that are trying to cross over, Wesia does not send soldiers to help. Bastet was a farmer in Briskwood when Wesian soldiers appeared among the fields. By the time he understood what they had come to do, his father was dead, his sister was gone, and Briskwood was burning. Bastet alone survived the Cleansing. He should not have. Wesia spent the months that followed breaking him apart, and bound what remained with a blood oath. Now he cannot disobey his superiors or deceive them, and must always act in what he believes to be Wesia's best interest. To learn why Briskwood was destroyed and what became of his sister, Bastet must cross a dying world while Wesia hunts him through it. Before long, he is no longer traveling alone: beside him is a young scholar whose understanding of art may prove as necessary as his own instinct for survival. Their road leads through places where stories can acquire wills of their own, where the line between man and monster is not always drawn in flesh, and where the struggle for the Maker’s throne has made art into faith, weapon, argument, and power. Bastet means only to find the truth and remain free long enough to act on it. But the world has little interest in letting him pass untouched. Survival will demand bargains, and choices with no innocent answer will force him to decide not only what his oath allows, but what he is willing to become. Originally serialized on Royal Road, where Couplet reached the Top 25 Best Rated among more than 25,000 fictions in 2019. The novel is complete, and chapters are published weekly. If you’d rather read the full story now, the complete digital edition is available on Amazon and Gumroad.