Showing results by narrator "Todd Merrifield" in All Categories

She keeps the roads honest, and the spirits on speaking terms. When wagons bog down, animals panic, or the Wilds turn hostile, caravan shaman Anya Stormbloom does what ledgers and swords cannot. She bargains with Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Spirit. What should have been a routine run to Redstone turns into a gauntlet: shade-tainted paths, wildfire country, flooded crossings, and a market town on the brink. Each solution adds a line to her oath-ledger, and reveals a storm no shaman should face alone.

Gideon Strake is an auditor trained to trust systems. Until he finds one that's already decided who should survive. Inside a failing colony, resources are shrinking—and the official model claims to distribute them fairly. But Gideon uncovers a hidden layer. A quiet set of variables shaping outcomes behind the scenes. Not based on need. Based on behavior.

There are no alarms in Arcadia. The body wakes when it is time; the mind follows with gratitude. Desire is measured. Dissent is reformed. Peace is engineered to last. Sixteen-year-old Elara Virelli has always been Arcadia's ideal daughter: top of her class, Civic Prefect, future Ascension candidate. She believes the official story—that the old world collapsed under selfish freedom, and that Arcadia's Reformation turned criminals into grateful Gammas who "gave up their will so that others might keep theirs."