The Hollow Crown of Ashenvale

The Hollowfen marshes have begun to stir, and something ancient is waking beneath the peat and black water. Marek Halloran, son of the keep's dying lantern keeper, knows the bogs better than any man alive, yet nothing in his years of watching the mist could prepare him for the night the stag-masked figure rises from the reeds wearing a crown of old bone. As the stranger walks toward the Halloran steading, Marek's sister Brenna begins to hear the whispered counsel of Yssel the Reed Witch, and his young cousin Lyssa dreams each night of Mireth the Deep-Priestess and the temple drowned beneath the marsh. Old Tomas, the only man who remembers the old songs, falls silent with fear. Only Vesh the Cartographer, half-mad and mapping places that should not exist, and Pell the Blind Oracle seem unsurprised, as though they have been waiting their whole lives for this season. Far to the south, the siblings Halric and Sera Vane sense the disturbance from the fever-haunted city where Morruath, the Sleeping God, is said to dream the world into shape. With each passing day the crown grows heavier on its wearer's brow, and the child Wynn, who was born from the ash of the last reckoning, begins to burn from within. The Hallorans must choose: wake the god and risk unmaking the world, or let the crown pass to another and watch their bloodline become the next chapter in a war that has already swallowed kings.