Critiques en avant-première

An anxious bard with a talking lute—what could go wrong?

Struggling bard Emry Karic has only one path home: impress the Auric Guild, join the ranks of the elite musicians therein, and return to his family with his honor in hand.

Difficult to do on a good day. Impossible to do with a possessed lute.

Just before the biggest performance of Emry’s life, a talkative forest spirit named Aspen traps themself in his lute. Emry swears the spirit to silence on stage, in exchange for a favor: he will help Aspen investigate the magical earthquake that forced them into the instrument.

But Emry is a bard, not a scholar, and their research leads them straight to the person who resents him the most: Cal Breslin, his academia-entrenched ex-girlfriend. As they delve into the forgotten mythology of spirits and gods, they uncover an ancient folktale. The tale recounts an earth-shattering quake, one whose magical energy consumed all living things as it swept across the country. To their horror, the story’s details echo what Emry and Aspen experienced the night before.

And as the apocalypse looms, the Auric Guild taps Emry for a callback, throwing his family’s ultimatum into conflict with their very survival.