Begin here — The Borrowed Summer
Eight realms have survived an unnatural winter. Their rescue may have been built on a theft.
The world at a glance
Veyrath is one great cold landmass, with mild western woods and a narrow southern farming belt. The mountains intercept the eastern weather; the rivers distribute water and a more disputed resource, warmth. Two centuries ago, engineers saved harvests by moving heat through living roots and buried chambers. They called the arrangement the Concord of Eight Hearths. The eight realms now disagree over whose summer they have been spending.
Four ways into the story
Follow Vessa Rusk from the ice of Lake Aranea to the instrument benches of Garnetrun. Join Tarin Halvek beneath The Frost Skyline, where a road predates the glacier. Listen with Iven Morn at The Thorn Fortress, where a tree remembers a child the treaty does not mention. Or sail with Lin Sere to find a ship legally declared lost that still carries passengers.
Explore the connected world
The map names are the names used in the articles. Each realm has a capital and a ruling household; the elected offices of Athelarden, Aranestel and Qirarden are not hereditary even when their holders have influential relatives. The family tree records ten households across three generations. Dates run forward to 684, the present, and timeline pins mark the place of each event rather than a whole realm.
The magic systems are intentionally different in reach, cost and certainty. The Codex of Power compares them; individual spells show what a practitioner can actually attempt. The opening chapters follow the northern surveyor and the highland explorer as their evidence begins to converge.
What nobody knows yet
The warm jar, the buried road and the displaced memories point toward one mechanism, but the public lore does not settle what it is. This is a world for stories to happen in, not a solved puzzle whose characters merely repeat the answer.
Aranestel’s combined escort and rescue fleet, divided over its own history.
Hedra records the sound of furnace valves by making notches in a wooden flute.
Meret married into the crown while working as a nursery grafting apprentice.
Sena marks ropes with colored threads identifying the crews who made them.
The Rusks earned the marchwardenship by maintaining winter shelters, not by possessing the largest estate.
Neris receives foreign captains in a warehouse whose doors remain open during council meetings.