Every lost thing gets a page in Verenthos's book. It writes itself: a fresh entry for each small, frightened, wandering creature that does not yet know it can be found. He is the god of Lost Souls, and his kindnesses are invisible — a ledge revealed when the water drops, a lamp turned a half-step wide, luck that was never luck. He asks nothing. He is never seen. And when a soul finally settles and belongs, it fades from his sight, which is how he knows he has won.
These are gentle, bittersweet tales from the kindest corner of the Forge, where the gods run on love. For readers of Legends & Lattes, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, and The House in the Cerulean Sea.
The Books
Book 1
The Stowaway
A small clever sea-creature slips aboard a fishing boat with nothing at all in the world, and thinks the open cargo port was luck. On the temple steps above the harbour a quiet god drinks cold tea and lets him keep it.
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Book 2
The Sprat
The lines are cast off, and the god who thought he was finished finds that he is not. A small sea-monster hides in a fishing boat's warm hold, bound for a port full of creatures who speak in colour.
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Book 3
The Passenger
A woman walks the coast road with a pack and no destination, half sure someone is looking out for her and half sure she is a fool for thinking it. She is right the first time. She will never once find that out.
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Book 4
The Kept
Four years in a training yard have taught a beast that it cannot win, so it goes down early, on cue. On a cold evening the god of lost souls looks up from his book and feels it beginning to let go.
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Book 5
The Healer
A healer who will not spend what his goddess gave him, and a god who never once comes near him. Entry five of The Book of Found Souls.
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Book 6
Three Cups
A priest has swept an empty temple floor for sixty years and is no longer sure it ever meant anything. There is a god at the other end of that, and the god of lost souls goes to find her.
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The complete collection
The Book of Found Souls
The god of lost souls takes his tea on a cold step and reads a book that writes itself, one page for every soul who falls out of the world. A creature, a woman, a beast, a healer, a village god and her last priest. He holds a ledge, opens a door, pours the tea, and takes no credit. Six warm, dryly funny stories about what a good ending costs.
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