Bryce O'Connor books in order

Hidden pasts. Secrets untold. Legends half-remembered. Fifteen fantasy writers gather to bring fifteen tales to life, each one a unique glimpse into a wholly original world.

On the Emerald Road, a dead Sage triggers a brutal trial beneath the forest floor. There, a young man must fight—and kill—both friends and enemies to become the next wielder of the fabled Emerald Blade.

In Midgard, a priestess of humble birth forges a strange bond with an ancient being as she searches for justice in a land that often rewards cruelty, betrayal, and bloodshed.

And in the Yarnsworld, the Magpie King teaches two brothers a dangerous lesson about the power of stories. Sticks and stones may indeed break bones...but they cannot hurt the Bramble Man.

In worlds ravaged by flood, fire, and frost, mere mortals strive to make their own legends amidst demons and deities alike. And in lands racked with human strife—where evil endures and no one is ever safe—scarred heroes fight forces even darker than their own personal demons.

Why do they fight?

Some seek to better the world, or themselves. Others are out to right old wrongs. But whatever their goal - reward, redemption, or just respite - the truth will out eventually. For no story is ever truly lost so long as there exists one to tell it.

I burned cities and drowned mountains. I pulled stars from the night sky and scorched the world with their flames. I am the Fisher King, and the grave does not bind me.

An academic with a taste for adventure, Eska de Caraval has means and influence, wit and charm... and a knack for acquiring artifacts that may not be hers to claim. But when Eska comes into possession of a strange disc of rune-carved bronze, she finds herself abruptly hunted by all manner of adversaries: an assassin in the shadows, a monster in the deep, a bitter rival burning with vengeance.

From sword and fang and flame Eska must defend herself, struggling all the while to unravel the mysteries of a dangerous artifact. An artifact so powerful, a dead tyrant will rise again to wield it.

A crown forged by death.

A fleet bent on destruction.

A clash of cities that will change everything.

In a storm of fire, a dead tyrant stakes his claim on the world once more. Manon Barca, desperate to save her brother from a cruel fate, bends the knee, determined to withstand any price.

Across the sea, Eska de Caraval searches for a legend. Confronted with chaos and unanswerable questions, questions challenging her very identity, she must determine where her future lies.

In the Seven Cities, treason takes shape, threatening to shatter the oldest of alliances. Tasked with defending the Seven, Alexandre de Minos discovers secrets that shake even his resolve. But not his duty.

But beyond the treachery and turmoil within, two shadowy threats emerge—a queen bred for battle and an ancient power renewed, each determined to break the will of the Seven.

Despite his youth, Declan Idrys knows of the evils of the world. He knows of the bastards and brigands who plague the King’s lands, of the monsters skulking in the wooded depths of the realm. Together with his companion, Ryn – a beast of rather peculiar talent – he has spent the last decade of his life beneath the bloody banners of a half-dozen mercenary guilds, hunting precisely such festering wickedness within the borders of Viridian.

Unfortunately, fate is quick to pull on the leash of its favorite children. When one particularly troubling contract goes sideways, Declan and Ryn find themselves thrust into a war thought legend and long-ended, a conflict so old it is synonymous with a time in which dragons still ruled the western skies. 

Now, as dead men rise from their graves and the terrible beasts of the northern ranges descend into the kingdom with an appetite for savagery and flesh, Declan is faced with a profane choice. He can turn, can flee an ancient rising horror that would see the realms of man left as shattered death and wind-blown ash.

Or, Declan can face this mounting threat, can come to terms with the fact that his oldest friend might just be more than he appears, and learn to wield an ageless power all his own.

Centuries pass, after all, but the Blood of Kings does not fade…

Ryn has fallen. Ester could be dying. Bonner is too far away to help. No matter how Declan Idrys looks at his situation, he comes to the same conclusion every time: He is about to die at the hands of the first dark elf seen in seven hundred years.

Fate, fortunately, is not so cruel though, and after barely surviving this initial encounter with the er’endehn of Eserysh, Declan and his friends find themselves in a tentative truce with the war-loving elves. They share a common enemy, after all, and their mutual hate for the Endless Queen and her growing legions is enough for the two groups to set aside their mistrust for one another, if only for now. 

Sehranya, however, is not one to rest easy while her enemies join forces, and Declan and his companions soon find themselves assaulted by new horrors as they set out to make at last for the legendary city of Ysenden in truth. But the Queen has made a mistake. Within Declan the slumbering might of his line is at last stirring, prodded into life by the guiding hands of Bonner yr’Essel. Fire. Power. Strength.

Sehranya will rue the day she did not throw everything she had into slaying the one of King’s blood…

Reidon Ward will become a god.

He doesn't know it yet, of course. Reidon was born weak, sickly and small. Afflicted with a painful disease and abandoned by his parents because of it, he has had to fight tooth and nail for every minor advantage life has allowed him.

His perseverance has not gone unnoticed, however, and when the most powerful artificial intelligence in human history takes an interest in him, things began to change quickly. Granted a CAD—a Combat Assistance Device—with awful specs but an infinite potential for growth, Reidon finds himself at the bottom of his class at the Galens Institute, one of the top military academies in the Collective. 

Along with his best friend, Viviana Arada, Reidon will have to start his long climb through the school rankings, and on to the combat tournament circuits that have become humanity's greatest source of excitement and entertainment.

So begins the rise of a god. So begins the ascent of the Stormweaver.

Among the scattered fringe cities bordering the Cienbal desert, the true name of the Monster of Karth is spoken only in whispers...

Raz i'Syul Arro.

A sellsword of the utmost caliber, Raz is a killer of paramount skill and highest regard. Towering tall even amongst the atherian, he is the only of his kind to live free in the "civilized" confines of mankind's varied cultures. He has no need of loyalties, his sole affections pledged to the gold crowns that buy his time and skills. Wed to his blades, Raz's only friends are the Moon and Her Stars and the shadows they bring with the night.

But Raz was not born to the mercenary's way, to the butchery and battle of day-by-day survival. Raz, like a sword, was hammered from steel and fire and ashy smoke, forged on the ruins of an old life. And Raz knows who he owes this new path to, this carved way of blood and iron. The Monster of Karth, after all, would never forget who gave him that name.

And some debts can't be paid in gold...

Raz i'Syul Arro is a hunted man. To the south, the Mahsadën of Miropa are gone. The šef lay dead, slain at Raz's own hands, their cruel will ripped from the shadows of the city. In response, riders careen to every reachable corner of the known realms, telling anyone with a mind to listen of the boundless riches promised for the Monster's head. 

The world now turned against him, Raz is forced to flee, escaping along the northern roads just as the summer months come to an end. For a time the coolness and breathtaking verdure of the great rolling woodlands he finds himself in are a welcome change, offering a sublime peace from a life that has rarely known more than brutality and bloodshed.

But that peace - as is so often the case - is a shallow trickery. The North, it seems, is not far-gone from the corruption and wickedness Raz had hoped to leave behind in the fringe cities. Before long he finds himself embroiled in the savage politics of this new land, forced to play a part in the ugly game of intrigue and violence once more. To survive, Raz must again give way to the Monster, making his stand within the devouring walls of the cruel coliseum the Northerners call simply "the Arena".

The Monster of Karth has risen once more. Quin Tern of Azbar has met his fate, and his council has borne the price of crossing Raz i'Syul Arro. Now, as the cruel walls of the city fade into the winter storms at his back, Raz rides north, seeking to take the High Priest Talo Brahnt up on an offer he never should have refused. 

The path Raz has chosen, though, is a bloody one, and before long he and his new companions find themselves pitted against hardships they can neither anticipate nor ignore. As man and snow and beast alike rise up to block their path, it seems almost as though the North itself has woken to wage war against the Monster.

And yet, Raz's greatest challenge still looms ahead. Far to the north, like a plague beneath the trees, Gulraht Baoill, Kayle of the savage mountain tribes, leads his armies further east with each passing day. He has set his hungry gaze upon the reaches of Cyurgi' Di, the High Citadel, and desires nothing more than to see it razed from the face of the world, offering it and its blasphemous "false-prophets" up as sacrifice to his Stone Gods. 

Syrah Brahnt, the High Priest's adopted daughter and protege, has found him out, discovering his plan to lay siege to her home, cutting her and the rest of the Laorin off from the world. As it is, though, there is little and less that she can do, and when the first of the Kayle's generals reaches the base of the mountain pass, Syrah is left with only one option. In the end, she will have to face the wrath of the tribes herself...

Little does she know that the Monster is coming, riding hard to lend her his blades.

The High Citadel cannot be seen to harbor a killer.

This is a simple truth, and one that Raz i'Syul Arro has little choice but to respect. As the winter storms fall away in favor of the North's pleasant summer months, Raz finds himself having once more to face the cruelties of the world with spear and sword in hand.

For the first time, though, the Monster no longer walks his path alone. Syrah Brahnt, Priestess of Laor and adopted daughter of the former High Priest of Cyurgi 'Di himself, has joined him on his journey. Leaving all that might have been behind, they set out together in search of new lives, always striving to stay ahead of the ever-looming shadows of old enemies that hound their every step.

Raz's legend, though, has spread too far. After vanquishing the great Kayle of the Northern tribes, his names have begun to echo across the realms: Monster of Karth, Scourge of the South, Dragon of the North. It isn't long before they are forced to draw on magic and steel to save themselves from the blades that seek them in the night, leaving them with little choice but to abandon everything they've ever known in favor of a perilous land neither would have every thought to seek. 

Meanwhile, waiting for them among the grasslands beyond those strange shores, a man whispers in his sleep, his iron shackles shaking as he trembles and repeats the same prophetic words over and over again.

"By sand, then snow, then sea, the Dragon comes."

With fifty thousand freed slaves at their back, Raz i'Syul Arro and Syrah Brahnt leave the savannahs of Perce behind. Karesh Syl is no more. Karesh Nan burns at their backs. Beyond the border before them the South looms, ready and waiting, and together Raz and Syrah pray they are prepared for the great offense they must now undertake against the fringe cities.

All the while, however, another threat has threaded her way into the ranks of the Mahsaden, and is waiting only for the right time to pull her web of woven fire tight...