Max Lake Enix

A girl wanders into the isolated city of Lowood Den. Her eyes are missing, and her body is covered in lacerations that spell out prophecies about the return of an ancient and cataclysmic threat.

Determined to understand what happened to her, sixteen year old Pontis Inoue and his friend Varia Longley leave their home for the first time to seek answers, ultimately finding themselves center-stage in a battle to save the people they love—and to reckon with humanity’s place in the universe.

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The Semaphore, Book One of the Nonk'non Palaver, is now complete here on Royal Road. Book Two, The Widower, is coming soon.

If you're enjoying the story, please consider following, commenting, and/or leaving a review. It helps keep Pontis and Varia's morale up.

As an apology for the apocalypse, the pantheon promised there'd be children born faster, stronger, and more powerful than the survivors they'd be sworn to protect. These children would institutionalize under the name of Palisade, call themselves Partisans, and conscript each new generation in service to the six territories of Auditoria.

Eight-hundred-some years later, Rhian Sinclair is bored. Grumpy and still grounded, Rhian plots her way off the Isle of Palisade and back to work—even if she's sure the next job will be her last.

Meanwhile, Andrei Strauss is resigned. He never wanted to be a priest, and after he's assigned to an isolated village, he must reach out to Palisade for help in solving a series of indiscriminate kidnappings.

Old friends are reunited, ancient secrets are revealed, and an assassin and a telepath walk into a bar at some point separately. From legend to life, truth to lie, fiction to fact.