The Road Beneath

The first rule of the Road is carved in stone. NO RETURN. Aldric Mourne steps past it anyway. Branded and exiled from the old faith, Aldric sets out after Mira, a woman who once trusted him with a confession. The System remade this country long before he packed his bedroll. Now town gates seal behind travelers, the dead keep walking, and a harbor can go on waiting for its ships long after the sea is gone. Aldric spent years listening for what people couldn’t bring themselves to say. On the Road, that patience can buy his companions room to pass. It can also leave him carrying a stranger’s grief so heavily that taking his next breath is work. The farther he walks, the more he can read in the ground beneath his feet, and the closer the Warden’s attention follows. There’s good company on the Road, if he can learn to lean on it. A former waystation keeper takes field notes even when the gates shut. A scholar of forbidden texts can argue a point all the way across a drowned forest. And the child who falls into step beside Aldric has been accepted by a Road that is supposed to turn children away. There’s a city beyond the passes, and a long way yet to walk together. A note from the author. This is a measured, stat-free GameLit pilgrimage. The climb runs through haunted towns and mountain passes, and progress comes from learning how the Road works and what its trials ask of the people walking it. Book One of The Road Beneath series.