I Am Alishan

Laleh has survived worse than most, and long ago learned to ask for nothing. So when a single terrible night in a back alley of Skaret leaves her carrying a child she never wanted, she runs. Not in fear, but because she has already decided this city will not have the last word. Across the desert, to the walled city of Qal-Zirun, to a storage shed on its outskirts, a patch of dead ground, and a life built from nothing but her own two hands.She names the boy Alishan, the stone that holds, and raises him in a city that has no use for either of them, through years when the bread costs more each season and there is less mercy to go around. He grows up quick and sharp and hungry: a best friend who talks too much, a knack for taking what isn't his, and a mother whose cough is getting worse in a way neither of them will say aloud.A dark, character-first desert fantasy, told in serial. Book One: The Tempering.A slow burn by design: small, quiet beats that click into place later. Carry the pieces. Let them sit.For adult readers: violence, grief, illness, and a brief, non-graphic scene of sexual assault.