Forge Mother: Gods of Stone

In the heart of Pax Akaedia, beauty is a weapon.

Kassiopeia of House Lanin is an artist, a seamstress, and a smuggler of dangerous things. Beneath the looms of her celebrated atelier, women disappear from census rolls, forbidden relics change hands, and coded messages travel hidden inside hems and embroidery. Senators wear her designs. Revolutionaries trust her secrets. The empire suspects nothing.

Until the earth begins to shake.

On the third day after the quake at the colosseum, Kass receives word that the gladiator now called the Quakeborn has been taken to the Pit-the brutal religious barracks where men are remade into holy weapons. At the same time, a frightened young mother and her newborn daughter must be hidden before inspections begin.

But the deeper Kass reaches into the fractures spreading beneath the Colonate, the stranger the world becomes.

Ancient statues invade her dreams.
Forgotten goddesses appear in forbidden sketches.
A legendary sword named Silba Neshra resurfaces in old myths and nursery rhymes.
And the silent woman at the center of Pax Akaedia-the sacred Velatrix herself-begins to feel less like a symbol and more like something trapped beneath stone.

As political conspiracies tighten around the Senate and divine prophecy stirs beneath the city streets, Kass finds herself haunted by a terrifying possibility:

The gods are not returning.

They were buried alive.

And someone is beginning to wake them.