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The Wards Will Fall is an ongoing dark fantasy serialized novel that updates weekly on Mondays. Subscribe to read chapters for free, sent directly to your email every week.

Only the brave warder guards of the border garrisons keep the country of Talmany safe from the hyssil, ravenous spirits that roam the cursed southern wilds past Talmany's border wards. Since the last big breach over a century ago, the threat from the hyssil has dulled into an uneasy memory.

But this has changed in recent months.

Hyssil attacks on the border garrisons are increasing steadily night after night. The wards placed by the garrison theurgists are mysteriously weakening. And whispers through the garrisons are it's only a matter of time until another serious breach occurs...

Stationed at the South Point garrison, Maxwell Darrow is a government seer conscripted for a ten year border contract, providing his magical Sight in service to a garrison theurgist. Three years into his contract and garrison work has only gotten more dangerous, but completing a border contract will open doors for more lucrative work far from the threat of hyssil.

But when a swarm of hyssil overrun South Point, Maxwell's life is overturned in a single terrible night. His garrison is overrun, his fellow warder guards dead or possessed. Talmany is lost, but maybe there is still hope. Far to the north lies Lathuel, a country that might as well be myth, guarded by impenetrable magic and vast beings. Lathuel hasn't communicated with the outside world in hundreds of years, but if anyone can save Maxwell's people from the hyssil, it's them.

Maxwell must journey north. But he didn't escape the night the wards fell unscathed, and he's no longer as alone in his own head as he thinks...