83 parts Complete A widowed queen and her forbidden lover, a young farmer, and a rebel huntress form an alliance to free thousands from a secret labor camp and end centuries of repressive, sacrilegious rule.
---------
In the Forna kingdom, the gods are both revered and feared. Meira knows that all too well as they banished her own grandfather from the earth for harboring rebellion. When the young farm worker is chosen by the deities to enter a prestigious assembly erected in their name, she rightfully can't help but question their judgment. And she's not alone.
After Meira's induction ceremony goes violently wrong, the already suspicious Queen Lena puts an end to the bad omen and sentences the outsider to death. Tossed out to sea to be devoured by the gods' raging waves, Meira is miraculously saved by descendants of the infamous northern rebels, all who supposedly died after the War of Insurrection centuries ago. Suddenly, everything Meira knows about her kingdom, and even her grandfather's supposed divine disappearance, is turned onto its head.
With the capital in chaos, Lena faces an onslaught of challenges but none more significant than regaining a lost memory, one that eventually reunites her with a forbidden lover and reveals a wicked truth about her kingdom's dark reign. The reignited flame sparks another rebellion of the ages that inspires the queen to take up arms against her own crown.
Exploring themes of worker exploitation, religious corruption, and the importance of free will, Gods and Martyrs is a sweeping epic of revelation, revolution, and redemption told through the eyes of three diverse female characters. It also features a powerful queer romance that doesn't beg to be labeled by its orientation.