Have YOU ever wanted to read, uh... 15k words of an as of yet incomplete but gradually updated WIP first draft of a novel? God that's a mouthful. Anyway. I'm writing a book.
It's called Saints in the Desert. It's a dark fantasy set in the post-war period of a territory conflict between two nations called Kelsys and Enura. The protagonist is Damian, former lieutenant in service of the nation of Kelsys, the aggressor in the war. For his exemplary service, Damian is given the honor of sainthood, which binds him to the divine office of Justice for his king eternal. To achieve this, Damian was tasked with executing twelve guilty men, Enuran commanders taken as prisoners of war. But Damian was deceived.
This story follows that deception to its end, twisting from the righteous fury of regicide to the malignant rot and asceticism of a man who flees into the desert to face penance for his crimes, and into the depths of madness and despair as ghosts of kings, nations, lovers, and the very soul of himself haunt Damian to bitterest of ends.
Obvious but obligatory content warnings for: Violence, starvation, paranoid delusions, psychological manipulation, religious abuse, mass death, gore, suicide, mild to extreme sexual content, racism, and a hell of a lot of vaguely European names and aesthetic calls to Catholicism.
You can read every word I've written as yet here in this handy word doc, accessible via named chapter links therein. Each is listed *in the order it appears in final book order* but they are not necessarily directly adjacent chapters, bc I'm writing this piecemeal. Enjoy!
Chapters of Saints in the Desert written thus far, in order of appearance:
