
by Robert Blacksmith
In the dying island nation of Breenland, where a drought is killing the poor and a boy-tide is killing the rest, the condemned are cast into sacred waters on a day that belongs only to a god. This year, the man conducting the ritual is the same one who trained those condemned to survive it. Tariel has no army, no title the holy well will recognize, and sixty-three days to find a crack in a law that has never once been broken, before his brother, his conscience, or the sea takes everything that remains. Release Schedule: I currently release new chapters regularly (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). ⚓ Follow so you never miss a new release. What to Expect: - Dark fantasy / post-apocalyptic fantasy / dystopian fantasy - Slow-burn character development - A disgraced prince learning to lead through suffering - Political tension, religious oppression, and survival - A bleak island kingdom of salt, rust, faith, and consequence - No easy magic. No quick fixes. No clean victories. Author's Note: The Road Ahead Released word count: 110,000+ The Scope: ~50 chapters Deadline: end of October 2026. General info: Genres: Dark Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian. POV: Third-Person Limited Average Chapter Length: ~3000 words
#6
9/7/2026
Peak #44
2d
#5
9/4/2026
Peak #50
0d
#4
9/3/2026
Peak #50
0d
#3
9/2/2026
Peak #50
0d
#2
8/30/2026
Peak #48
0d
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 10:38 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 10:38 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Coupled 14-day outlook
rs-joint-entry-copula-v1
Any eligible RS entry
42%
Two or more lists
22%
Likely threshold order: Tragedy → Sci-fi → Romance → Fantasy → Main.
Leading bundle: Tragedy (21%).
Estimated from one fitted shared story path; category probabilities are not multiplied as if lists were independent.
Separate entry forecast; this probability does not enter the ranking score.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#9608 of 12,202 · 9558 below RS #50
By genre
beats 98% of similar stories
beats 23% of similar stories
beats 15% of similar stories
Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.