The Anathema Cycle: The Saint and The Demon
BOOK ONE: THE SAINT & THE DEMON
Two boys. One prophecy. A world that wants them both dead.
Konzu Firen was born a prince and sold like cargo. His mother, the Empress, found his mind, brilliant, rigid, incapable of conformity, to be a flaw in the bloodline. So she gave him to the Temple of Agni-Surya, that taught him law instead of love, scripture instead of touch. Now he is a Water Sage, a living miracle-worker, a saint to those who witness his power. But saints can be broken. Saints can be branded. Saints can be offered up as sacrifices to gods who never answer.
Alec Nightshade was raised in a village that no map remembers, the capital city of No Man’s Land, carving wood and listening to lullabies in a language everyone else forgot. He had a father who taught him that hands could create as well as break. He had a mother who kissed his forehead in the moonlight and walked into the dark so he could live. He had two friends who made the world feel like home. Then he heard a whisper about the D'Vantu—an ancient force of cosmic despair—and decided to hunt it down. He never expected the monster to hunt back.
Now he carries the thing inside his chest. They call him a vessel. An ending waiting to happen. The last of a people he never knew he belonged to.
When their paths collide in a forgotten temple, two broken boys must make an impossible choice: trust each other, or die alone.
The Empress wants Konzu's head for the heresy of being kind.
The Calderan Republic wants Alec's heart to preserve their lies.
The D'Vantu wants to wake up and remind the world why it should be afraid.
And in the space between them, something impossible is growing.
Because the saint with the scarred face and the demon with the clever hands are learning that prophecies can be wrong. That miracles can be stolen. That love, messy, illogical, inconvenient love, might be the one force the Cycle cannot correct.
The world is burning. The hunters are closing in. And the only people who can stop the end of everything are two kids who can barely keep each other alive.
The Saint & The Demon is the first book in The Anathema Cycle, an epic fantasy series about found family, queer heroes, the cost of empire, and the radical act of choosing hope in a world designed for despair.
For readers who believe that monsters are made, not born. For readers who know that saints are just people who refused to stop trying. For anyone who has ever felt like a flaw in someone else's perfect design.
THE ANATHEMA CYCLE
Book One: The Saint & The Demon
Book Two: The River's Price
Book Three: The Unmoving Heart
Book Four: The Sun on the Scales
Book Five: The Council of Shadows
Book Six: The Heart of the Empire
Book Seven: The A'Vantu
BOOK ONE: THE SAINT & THE DEMON
Two boys. One prophecy. A world that wants them both dead.
Konzu Firen was born a prince and sold like cargo. His mother, the Empress, found his mind, brilliant, rigid, incapable of conformity, to be a flaw in the bloodline. So she gave him to the Temple of Agni-Surya, that taught him law instead of love, scripture instead of touch. Now he is a Water Sage, a living miracle-worker, a saint to those who witness his power. But saints can be broken. Saints can be branded. Saints can be offered up as sacrifices to gods who never answer.
Alec Nightshade was raised in a village that no map remembers, the capital city of No Man’s Land, carving wood and listening to lullabies in a language everyone else forgot. He had a father who taught him that hands could create as well as break. He had a mother who kissed his forehead in the moonlight and walked into the dark so he could live. He had two friends who made the world feel like home. Then he heard a whisper about the D'Vantu—an ancient force of cosmic despair—and decided to hunt it down. He never expected the monster to hunt back.
Now he carries the thing inside his chest. They call him a vessel. An ending waiting to happen. The last of a people he never knew he belonged to.
When their paths collide in a forgotten temple, two broken boys must make an impossible choice: trust each other, or die alone.
The Empress wants Konzu's head for the heresy of being kind.
The Calderan Republic wants Alec's heart to preserve their lies.
The D'Vantu wants to wake up and remind the world why it should be afraid.
And in the space between them, something impossible is growing.
Because the saint with the scarred face and the demon with the clever hands are learning that prophecies can be wrong. That miracles can be stolen. That love, messy, illogical, inconvenient love, might be the one force the Cycle cannot correct.
The world is burning. The hunters are closing in. And the only people who can stop the end of everything are two kids who can barely keep each other alive.
The Saint & The Demon is the first book in The Anathema Cycle, an epic fantasy series about found family, queer heroes, the cost of empire, and the radical act of choosing hope in a world designed for despair.
For readers who believe that monsters are made, not born. For readers who know that saints are just people who refused to stop trying. For anyone who has ever felt like a flaw in someone else's perfect design.
THE ANATHEMA CYCLE
Book One: The Saint & The Demon
Book Two: The River's Price
Book Three: The Unmoving Heart
Book Four: The Sun on the Scales
Book Five: The Council of Shadows
Book Six: The Heart of the Empire
Book Seven: The A'Vantu