The Forge of Worlds: Part One

Before the first kingdom rose, Arden forged creation from grief and steel—and struck a bargain to save it.

Now the cost of that bargain is coming due in the lives of ordinary people: those trapped beneath the weight of family legacy, those forced into impossible choices and told they should be grateful, those struggling to build a new life from exile, loss, and survival.

None of them know they are pieces in a game that began before nations were born—or that the forge that made the world is going cold.