A Dark Fantasy of Swagger, Survival, and Becoming

Leroy talks big: he’s king of South Sinnic, heir to fifteen generations of killers, a feared immaculate thug, a ladies’ man, and the seaside citadel’s future legend—at least, that’s what he wants to believe.

In truth, Leroy’s a broke gutter-rat surviving on stolen swagger, living with his grandma in the blood-soaked slums beneath City Sinnic, dodging the Wolf Brigade, and chasing a woman who barely tolerates him.

Then a foreign marauder arrives.

Kashim—pirate, poet, alchemist, slayer—comes from across the sea seeking warriors worthy of song. Instead, he finds a city of cowards, bureaucrats, and broken boy-men. Yet in Leroy, beneath the lies and bravado, he glimpses something unexpected.

But when a bungling civil servant winds up bleeding in the street, Leroy is dragged into a conspiracy of bugbear slaves, criminal gangs, and city corruption. With the hounds closing in and no future left in Sinnic, he faces an impossible choice: remain the frightened nobody he has always been or become the king he pretends to be.