Teraven trilogy · Book 1
Teraven
935 AR
Jun Kormun lives among a people the histories declare lost. Beyond the familiar roads, an expedition begins to test what the maps leave blank.
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FROM THE MANUSCRIPT · READING EXCERPT
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On the maps kept in Ardain, Teraven looked almost entirely known. Roads wound through the Lakelands and crossed the plains; ships moved between the ports of the Sapphire Sea; the mountain passes were measured and named. Merchants brought back news from distant kingdoms, and scholars compared their accounts with surveys made generations earlier. Yet beyond the last dependable roads, particularly in the far north, whole stretches of parchment remained empty. A line drawn on a map was no guarantee that anyone had walked it.
People filled those blank spaces with stories. In Bellhaven, children learned of the Vaelborn, who were said to have vanished into Vaelreach centuries ago. Sailors spoke of the World Traveler, immense enough to spend a lifetime in deep water without coming ashore. There were accounts of buried cities, roads that ended against solid rock, enormous beasts and settlements swallowed by ice. Some tales had been altered so often that even the people telling them could no longer say where they had begun.
By 935 AR, most scholars considered the Vaelborn a lost people. Their ruins had been recorded; their disappearance had been assigned dates and competing explanations. In the kingdoms south of the northern mountains, few people had reason to question any of it. Jun Kormun knew the histories were wrong. He lived among the people those histories declared dead, and he had never wanted the outside world to discover its mistake.
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End of excerpt. This site presents a selection from the manuscript.