Stone and Strain Series

The Stone and Strain series is a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy about the last cities of Avereth, a land where reality itself is dying.

For two hundred years, humanity has survived inside the Everholds, walled cities protected from the Strain by ancient barriers and failing machines no one fully understands. Beyond those walls, roads shift, distances lie, and the ground can change without warning. Inside, powerful administrations maintain order through secrecy, sacrifice, and the quiet removal of anyone who asks the wrong questions.

Savren is a mail courier accustomed to carrying other people’s messages between the surviving cities. He has no power, influence, or desire to become a hero. But when families begin disappearing from Ashkyr and every record of their existence is erased, one undelivered letter draws him into a mystery reaching back to the Collapse that shattered Avereth.

With Talveya, a former prisoner determined never to surrender her freedom again, Savren ventures beyond the safety of the walls in search of the truth. Their journey carries them through ruined cities, unstable deadlands, abandoned laboratories, and a conspiracy built into the foundations of every Everhold. The deeper they search, the more they discover that the barriers protecting humanity may also be feeding the force destroying it.

Blending survival fantasy, post-apocalyptic mystery, ancient technology, political conspiracy, evolving abilities, and a slow-burn romance, Stone and Strain follows ordinary people confronting a truth large enough to change their world. To save Avereth, Savren and Talveya must uncover what happened during the Collapse, expose the systems built upon it, and decide how much of themselves they are willing to sacrifice for a future no one is certain still exists.