Isobel Vane is the finest translator of dead languages alive, and officially her work doesn't exist. Her guild takes it, and publishes it under other men's names. They will never seat her: she is the Master's daughter, and a daughter is all the house permits her to be.
The year of the golden dragon is approaching. With it, the storm keeping two continents apart dies. In this one year, her gift with languages makes her unignorable, one of the most important people on her coast. Spice, silk, ideas, and diseases all flow over on merchant ships. In this storm, the printing press comes too. Heretical words, and a stamped book that will start a revolution no individual can stop.
Alone at night, Isobel reconstructs a word no living voice has spoken in a thousand years. She says it aloud, and every flame in the room goes still.
Something has been listening for the missing words.
What to expect: Epic fantasy of the printing-press moment. A Reformation with real magic underneath it. The magic system runs on historical linguistics: reconstruct the dead parent language from its surviving branches — based on the real reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. Politics, love, trade, merchants, and a church that owns the economy and the calendar. Memorable characters, a love triangle, soft moments, and a slow-burn, unstoppable tragedy.
The companion site, with full audiobook and text, lives at worldfall.ink.
