A Gospel of Black Powder

For thousands of years, the world has belonged to the mages.Magic is not inherited by blood nor granted by gods. It appears without warning-one child among a million, born to peasant huts and royal palaces alike. Yet chance has never prevented power from building chains around itself.The first mages conquered kingdoms and crowned themselves rulers of mankind. Over centuries they forged the Great Houses, adopting gifted children wherever they were found and raising them into dynasties older than nations. Though mage-lords preach wisdom and order, they rule from a simple belief: those without magic are lesser beings, fit to serve but never to govern.Their empires were built through endless wars against rival Houses. Sorcery reshaped rivers, shattered cities, and darkened the skies-but every miracle carried a cost. Magic feeds upon life itself, and generations of conflict have exhausted the world's reserves and weakened the Gifted. The mage-lords still sit upon their thrones, but their power is fading. Great Houses feud over dwindling strength. Beneath the splendor, the age of sorcery is quietly dying.Far from their towers, in one of the poorest and most forgotten regions of the world, a young man named Stefan stumbles upon a strange substance hidden beneath black earth and stone.The powder burns with violent force.To nobles and mages alike, it seems a curiosity-dangerous, primitive, and unworthy of serious study. But the young man sees something else. In a world where power has always belonged to the rare and adopted few, black powder offers an impossible promise: that ordinary people might wield force great enough to challenge the untouchable.As unrest spreads and rival mage Houses prepare for yet another war, discovery becomes revolution. Preachers, rebels, soldiers, and rulers are drawn toward the growing fire, each seeking to control it before their enemies do.The mage-lords believe they are fighting over the future of their fading world.They do not yet understand that the true struggle has already begun.For the first time in history, power may no longer belong to those born with magic. And once common men learn to command thunder, no throne will remain secure.

Pagina's: 106, Paperback, Independently published