The Blacksmith's Son - The Gentle Blade [Pre-Order] (Hard Cover)

Corren Vale was nine years old when the Empire burned his village to ash.

By nightfall, his father was dead, his home was gone, and Corren had been stripped of his name and sent to an imperial mine where survival meant learning one lesson fast:

Everything has a weak point.

His father taught him that at the forge. Iron. Stone. Tools. People.

Years of slavery teach him how to use it.

When Corren is dragged from the mines and thrown into the Empire’s arena, that same instinct becomes the only thing keeping him alive. Bigger fighters can be studied. Techniques can be stolen. Pain can be endured. Every opponent has something that can break if he looks long enough.

And Corren is very, very good at looking.

But surviving the arena means becoming useful to the same Empire that destroyed everything he loved. Winning means killing people who may be just as trapped as he is. And every new weapon Corren adds to his arsenal makes it a little harder to remember where survival ends and something colder begins.

He doesn’t want glory.

He doesn’t want to be a hero.

He wants his freedom.

He wants the people he loves to survive long enough to see it.

And he has a list of names for everyone who made sure they wouldn’t.

The Gentle Blade is the first volume of The Blacksmith’s Son, an adult grimdark progression fantasy about survival, trauma, found family, and what happens when a child taught to find the weakness in everything eventually turns that lesson on an empire.

For readers who want progression earned through blood, character-driven combat, complicated morality, and consequences that don’t disappear when the fight ends.