The Cracked Cup Knight
In a world where necromancer-gods rule the dead and the Road of Graves stretches through cursed wastelands, haunted forests, and buried cities, a nameless knight - resurrected so many times his soul barely clings to his senses - serves as protector to his Blue Lady, a noblewoman searching for the stepson she drove from her household in shame. Their journey spans twenty-four chapters of escalating peril: tomb raids, sewer escapes, murders at haunted inns, hypnotist traps, underground sieges, and carnival horrors.
Along the way, the knight’s cracking body and the Lady’s cracking faith form a mirror, and the ghost of the lady’s dead daughter haunts every mile. This is a story about a knight’s Devotion, and his attempts to hold together the cracked body that carries it.
The Spit of Mool
A resurrected knight descends into the tomb of an ancient creature to retrieve a strange payment, only to find the catacombs alive with mechanical apes, bioluminescent jellyfish, and a sleeping mancer who doesn't stay asleep.
The Sewer Under Khoroduhn
After assassinating a poisoner in a rain-drowned mountain keep, the knight must escape through the city's sewers with a noblewoman and a mercenary, past sentient flotsam and a maddened Silk Giant.
The Funeral on the Road of Graves
Fleeing assassins along the Road of Graves, the knight and his Lady shelter with a dying woman whose small kindnesses lead to a grim funeral - and a necromancer who won't let the dead rest.
The Graveside Inn
Locked inside a haunted inn after a guest is murdered, the knight must solve a string of killings among strangers - while an invisible force picks them off one by one.
The Walkers of Whiteeye
Crossing a dust-choked wasteland with a band of hardened survivors, the knight faces a twelve-day march haunted by a monstrous dragonfly that hunts by night and sings through the hills.
The Three Guests
Three travelers share stories around a blue-flamed hearth in a cobweb-choked hotel - tales of a mercenary's forbidden love, a dying man's haunted forest, and a widow's revenge on a thing wearing her husband's face.
The House of Maze
Searching for the Lady's stepson, the knight enters a windowless guild house whose labyrinth of crawlspaces, revolving walls, and rat-swarms is designed to strip intruders of their sanity.
The Ghost Factory
Deep in a gorge beneath Middlemoss, the knight discovers a factory where ghosts are captured, stripped of will, and bottled for sale - and the specter of the Lady's dead daughter is waiting.
The Soul-Sense
The knight's body, cracked from too many resurrections, begins to fail - his senses burning away. To survive, he must descend beneath the Road of Graves and claim a sense that isn't his own.
The Duel
A reckless young man begs the knight to train him for a duel in five days, dangling a false lead on the Lady's stepson - but his opponent turns out to be someone the knight already knows.
The Temple of Lady Horsehair
The Lady agrees to paint her own portrait in a goddess's temple in exchange for news of her stepson - not realizing the painting is draining her soul, and the knight must defy a god to save her.
The Hypnotist of Yellowmoor
Cursed with worsening nightmares that bleed into waking life, the knight seeks a cure at a manor on the yellow heath - where the healer and the trap are the same person.
The Tower of Silence
When monks abduct the Blue Lady into their oil-black tower, the knight and a mercenary infiltrate through wine-soaked catacombs and blind monks to reach her before the Lidless does.
The Old Soulwood
Separated from his Lady in an ancient forest that swallowed the Road of Graves, the knight must pass a sovereign tree's test of loyalty and fight through its predators to find her again.
The Canopy of the Ents
Driven above the clouds by rising poison mist, the knight and his Lady climb colossal living trees - and descend into the diseased heart of a dying one, where something is wrong with the knight's hands.
The Tunnel of the Stillbreather
In a labyrinth of green-glowing ice beneath the mountains, the knight hunts a preserved creature that won't stop breathing - and the Lady finds journal pages bearing a familiar crest.
The Coffin Rollers
Sheltering from a storm inside a traveling carnival, the knight and his companions discover the circus is a trap - its ringmaster a skin-stitched shapeshifter with no intention of letting them leave.
The Harridan's Moon
With his Lady dying from venom on a dark moor, the knight surrenders his sword to a crone who promises a cure - then must track down the walking hut that stole them both.
The Alsoburg Siege
Descending into an underground cavern under siege by wax golems and a maddened mancer called The Crawling Silk, the knight must break through an occupied city to reach the creature controlling the army.
The Scarab Mine
Hunted through a soul-filled mine by an enemy he cannot look at directly, the knight must fulfill a mancer's bargain and find a relic that can bring the dead back to life.
The Stone Cocoon
Caught in a hallucinatory winter storm on a demon king's burial plain, the knight shelters in a cave where his Lady's grief and guilt finally surface - and a daughter's ghost demands to be seen.
The Sisterhood of the Yellow Smile
The knight arrives in Hornwater to find his Lady has voluntarily chosen burial at a sinister priory - and must break his oath to the Road to dig her free from a coffin she asked for.
The Weaponmaster
A figure from the knight's past reappears in Hornwater with a familiar voice and a rebuilt face - but the man who trained him may not be a man at all, and the Lady's stepson is finally within reach.
The Court of the Leather Dragon
The Lady's stepson is now a warlord on a fortified island. The knight must face him in a final duel - shieldless, bleeding, and carrying a choice about whether he wants to survive it.