The Ruined Road

The landslide didn’t just bury the century-old trade route between three hostile kingdoms; it buried the established order. Now, the caravan road is cut off, and surviving the initial disaster is merely the first, bloody test. Faris-ran, desperate to shed the suffocating legacy of a legendary caravan master parent, must carve a new path through shattered terrain, highly caustic alkaline dust, and rising banditry. Faris finds an unexpected, invaluable local ally in an outcast whose knowledge of the fractured terrain borders on the miraculous. But the alliance hides a dangerous motive. The ruined road will demand every ounce of Faris's hard-won competence, a ruthless new pragmatism—and a price far worse than simply dying in the dust.