Resilience’s Rook

The Daevas have fallen. In their absence, a choking miasma has risen, twisting beasts into fiends and men into monsters. With the empire in ruins, the Eternal Shah has seized power, converting the monasteries that once fed, housed, and healed the poor into palaces for his sultans. Now, only one city on the empire’s fraying edge tends to the fading light of the fallen Daevas.

Eskander, revered pacifist and leader of the last sacred hall of spiritual strength, was once the heart of that resistance. But in the wake of his son’s suicide and the closing of his temple, he is a hollowed man, shrouded in guilt, shame, and self-doubt. His faith demands peace, yet the world around him teeters toward tyranny.

On the final night of purifying his son’s funeral pyre, Eskander is attacked and dragged to the edge of the miasma—the very place his son’s body was found.

He Prayed For Peace. They Answered In Blood.

If his enemies let him be, he might have accepted his failure, fleeing into the annals of obscurity and hiding in the fading memories of a bygone era. But now, to uncover the truth of who murdered his son, why, and how deep the rot runs within the Eternal Shah’s court, Eskander will answer the bloody call.

And as whispers stir of ancient remains buried beneath the sultans’ palaces—bones said to bridge the gap between the mortal and divine realms—Eskander finds himself at the center of something far greater than vengeance. The Daevas may be gone, but their legacy is not yet lost.

And neither is he.