"The sea does not ask permission to change. Neither do I."
A forge-warlord who believes everything has a purpose—and that purpose is revealed under heat and pressure.
A silent sculptor of living stone who believes flesh is temporary—and mistakes movement for imperfection.
A serene tyrant of the upper air who measures worth in perspective—and discards those who cannot see far enough.
A glacial huntress who leaves frozen silence behind her—where Yrsa passes, the land forgets how to be warm.
A corpse-fat brute with a cookpot halo of iron who drags a dinner bell through the mud—ringing it only when the screaming starts.
A mud-crowned titaness of hunger and spite who treats settlements like pantries and people like noisy livestock.
“Don’t watch the gate—watch the stones. The wall grows fingers in this cold.”
“The gates do not fall. They forget to be closed.”
“Open your gates, little kin. Or I will teach your walls how to kneel.”
Pile warm. Pile metal. Kneel. Do this, and Gorvak does not break you.
A self-crowned “king” has taken over a cluster of farming villages. Bork, a grotesquely bloated hill giant with a crown made from a dented iron cauldron, now rules from a half-destroyed barn surrounded by shattered furniture, terrified peasants, and mountains of food-stained bones.