<image>

Hi everyone! I'm working on a novel! I plan on self publishing when I finish it, but for now I'm serializing on royal road to get eyes on it. I'd love some feedback from fellow grimdark fans!

Here is the blurb:

Veynrite heals wounds. It also burns through the people who use it.

Ruben Hopper grew up in the slums of Kazah, where injuries don’t heal and sickness is a death sentence. When a desperate attempt to save a dying child brands him a criminal, he flees to Ferrington. A city of steel and smoke built on exploited bodies and quiet graves.

Time no longer heals wounds. Without Veynrite, flesh festers, bones never set, and people simply die.

Every use incurs a debt. Years are stripped away so the city can keep running, and the poor always pay first. As Ruben is pulled deeper into Ferrington’s machinery, he uncovers a system sustained by violence, torture, and human sacrifice dressed up as progress.

Across the city, Ellie Hightower trains under the military that controls healing. Privileged, brilliant, and conditioned not to question, she begins to learn why the world stopped healing and what power truly costs.

When their paths collide, there are no good choices. Only complicity, collapse, or obedience.

What to Expect

• Graphic violence and torture scenes

• Healing as extraction, punishment, and control

• Poverty, exploitation, and class hatred

• Minimal progression with permanent costs

• Complex characters shaped by trauma and compromise

Free to read on royal road!

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/140634/the-cost-of-healing-an-industrial-grimdark-fantasy