SPFBO winner Rob J. Hayes has teamed up with Jackson Dickert to put together a comprehensive world guide to The Ties That Bind trilogy for fans who want to experience the gritty, grimdark world of First Earth, now with even greater depravities and horrors. Included are two brand new novellas from Rob! In Sting of the Dragon, Travine squashes a rebellion, paving the way for his future as the Empress’s Dragon Herald. In The Princess Blade, discover the events that took Henry from royalty to a cold-blooded killer… under the guise of a child’s bedtime story. Monsters and gore included, obviously. Plus, a brand new short story, “The Serpent’s Tooth”, written by Jackson Dickert with Rob J. Hayes’ stamp of approval. It doesn’t take long for Harod to betray his old friend, Jezzet Vel’urn, during The Heresy Within. What dark secret was he willing to risk certain death from a blademaster to protect? Alongside these new adventures into the First Earth Saga, explore a worldbuilding companion, complete with more than 115 story extras that detail character backstories and world lore, over 140 exclusive, original artworks, and the ten previously published First Earth Saga short stories, now collected into one book. With over 120,000 words of content, The World of Heresy Within is easily as long as your standard fantasy novel and ten times as dark! Detailed blurbs for Sting of the Dragon, The Princess Blade, and The Serpent’s Tooth are available to read as part of the free sample.

You’ve heard the story before: an orphaned boy, raised by a wise old man, comes to a fuller knowledge of his magic and uses it to fight the great evil threatening his world. But what if that hero were destined to become the new dark lord? The Academy of Chaenbalu has stood against magic for centuries. Hidden from the world, acting from the shadows, it trains its students to detect and retrieve magic artifacts, which it jealously guards from the misuse of others. Because magic is dangerous: something that heals can also harm, and a power that aids one person may destroy another. Of the academy’s many students, only the most skilled can become avatars—warrior thieves, capable of infiltrating the most heavily guarded vaults—and only the most determined can be trusted to resist the lure of magic. More than anything, Annev de Breth wants to become one of them. But Annev carries a secret. Unlike his classmates who were stolen as infants from the capital city, Annev was born in the village of Chaenbalu, was believed to be executed, and then unknowingly raised by his parents’ killers. Seventeen years later, he struggles with the burdens of a forbidden magic, a forgotten heritage, and a secret deformity. When Annev is subsequently caught between the warring ideologies of his priestly mentor and the Academy’s masters, he must finally decide whether to accept the truth of who he really is … or embrace the darker truth of what he may one day become.