SOME MYSTERIES ARE SO ANCIENT THAT THEY DEFY EXPLANATION.

On paper, novice arcanomancer Neve has it all. The top of her class at the Fourth Tower’s prestigious mage college, a mountain of knowledge, and an apprenticeship all but guaranteed. But four years of intense study have left her impersonal, unsympathetic, and unwilling to face the dark actions of her past. Unexpectedly, and with only three months until graduation, the Tower Council poses a humbling ultimatum: compose a novice’s thesis, or face expulsion from the Tower.

Though a thousand miles separate Wilfred from a life he’d rather leave in the dust, a guilty conscience is a tough bug to shake, and even the most well-intentioned folks sometimes slip into old habits. Still, there’s work to be found in the Towers of Bomag as a bodyguard for wayfaring students, except none of them will look past his violent history. Everything changes, however, the night before a hasty and desperate Neve Lenareal is due to depart. She’s loaded with pride; he’s a touch too pacifistic. But deep in the heart of an enemy nation, each other is all they’ve got.

An anomalous, course-changing meteoroid is Neve’s only shot at redemption. Find it, study it, then advance to apprenticeship. It should’ve been easy, but Neve and Wilfred’s stay in the reclusive village of Gusevka takes a dark turn when villagers go missing and wildlife are found drained of blood. No less, Neve’s fundamental delineation between reality and fairytales is challenged upon discovering a voice in a rock, a tree that shouldn’t exist, and a gemstone that beats like a heart. And at the center of it all stands a cruel stranger with a body made of ashes.

It’s going to be a bloody spring.

The Cult of the Bloodless is the first entry in the Pallid Waste trilogy, an academic dark fantasy sword & sorcery epic with a touch of romance.