Tears in the Void

Some men fear the dark. Asher Alder sells the light that keeps it at bay. Asher is a master alchemist, peddling luminous oils to frightened villagers living on the edge of the uncanny woods. But his unparalleled bravery on the monster-haunted roads is not born of courage—it is born of an absolute, chilling emptiness. Asher feels no terror, no grief, and no love. He is a perfectly calibrated machine, traveling the continent to harvest the world's most terrifying beasts for profit. In Tears in the Void, the breathtaking second volume of The Covenant of Quiet Beasts, a whispered rumor sends Asher deep into an abandoned, fog-choked valley in search of a legendary creature. It is a towering entity of pure, suffocating shadow—a beast that extinguishes flames simply by drawing near and devours the ambient moonlight. Armed with volatile chemical explosives and heavy iron traps, Asher expects to face a ruthless apex predator. Instead, what he finds in the ruined cobblestone square will shatter his mechanical understanding of the world. The shadow-beast is not hunting; it is mourning. And as the creature's agonizing, earth-shattering grief washes over the dead valley, Asher is forced to confront the terrifying void within his own chest. How do you kill a monster that possesses more of a heart than you do? Immerse yourself in John Newbill’s dark, atmospheric world—a gothic fantasy masterpiece that blurs the line between man, beast, and the lingering echoes of love.