The Barren Oath

For seven years, Brock Kaelen has carried the weight of a dead world. The village he once called home is nothing but ash and bone, and the name "Osric" is a burning stone behind his teeth—a vow of vengeance that has kept him alive when he had no reason to be. His only companion is a blood-stained scarf, a cold, stiff relic of the woman he loved and the child who never knew his name. But in the Borderlands, death is rarely the end. When Brock returns to the site of his tragedy, he finds a body that refuses to rot and a plague that defies the laws of nature. The destruction of his village was not a simple act of feudal cruelty, but a calculated sacrifice to feed an ancient, hungry entity known as the Devourer. As a monstrous darkness begins to bleed into the world, Brock discovers that his quest for vengeance is only a fraction of a much older, more terrifying war. With the help of an unlikely band of survivors—a dying monk, a guilt-ridden scout, and a determined knight—he must confront a truth more devastating than his own grief: his wife knew the horror that was coming, and the scarf he carries is not a token of the past but the only weapon that can sever the Devourer's tether to the living.