Fall, Sacred Apple
The Chroma Books, #0
by Emory Glass
The pact is bleeding.
What started as a bountiful covenant between a Republic and the goddess who sustains it now suffers a drought of faith. Should a famine of devotees follow, the Blood Mother will uproot the pact. Civilisation will collapse.
In the midst of these uncertain times, Corbha, a warrior-nun of steadfast faith, eagerly awaits her brother's birth. He will be the first child born at Madhcha Abbey in twenty-four years. If his delivery suggests divine favour, Corbha and her siblings are to punish a trio of disobedient senators. They have propagated the Republic's growing disregard for the Blood Mother and Her Eightfold Orchard. That cannot stand.
For Einaid, a doomsday cultist in hiding, the child's birth raises questions about the abbey and its inhabitants. The answers are scandalous enough to spark widespread dissent should they fall into the wrong hands—and nothing would please Einaid more than igniting the flame that makes Her Orchard burn.
Fall, Sacred Apple is a tragic dark fantasy drama washed in insidious and eldritch botanical horror.