Kenneth Burgess

In the marshes at the edge of the world, a lizardfolk boy keeps count of his days in the bark of a tree, and out on the Breach the mist has begun to breathe. On a river between two lords, a ferrywoman carries a girl across the water on the King’s word and learns what that word costs. On a prison rock off the city of Greymist, a branded sellsword with no name holds court every morning for a rook, and his mouth is about to cost him more than his face. And in a village called Greenest, a girl starts to dream. Revelýa is an empire under a Hooded King, whose word travels with his riders and is kept by the Hush, who come on wings in the night when it is broken. Dark Signs is the first book. My world, characters and plot, built from a 2015 manuscript and from an old D&D campaign of mine; prose drafted with an AI co-writer, snippets of my own writing and each line still hand-edited by me. Chapter one is here as a draft for feedback; the following chapters are posted free on Royal Road: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/196975/dark-signs