The Old Road

Sometimes you choose without realizing you did. Be careful of your choices, or you might find yourself walking the Old Road.

Pete is a kid from nowhere - hungry, stubborn, sharp enough to survive, and carrying the quiet second sight his grandmother warned him about. When the world thins and the Old Road opens beneath his feet, he falls into a subterranean land of Goblins, Dwarves, Elves, and a Power older than anything that walks there. A world where strength is measured in change, and trust is a currency no one spends lightly.

Taken in by Keres, a Goblin scout with secrets of her own, Pete is pushed through harsh training, long miles, and dangers he never imagined. Creatures track him. Factions maneuver around him. And every time he reaches for Power, something ancient stirs and whispers back.

Everyone seems to want him.
No one will tell him why.

As he and Keres travel toward the Capitol, the truth becomes harder to ignore: he is not being protected. He is being moved. By the time he reaches the Academy, Pete understands one thing clearly - he is a piece on someone else's board.

If he wants to live long enough to find a way home, he'll have to decide who he is in a world not his own... and what he's willing to become.

The Old Road is the first novella in The Dara Sealladh Trilogy, a gritty, mythic Appalachian-rooted fantasy about Power, survival, and the cost of choices made.