Squire of Shame (The Black Cross Litany Book 1)

In the broken roads of Frankia, where bells go silent and the faithful vanish between one shrine and the next, a seven-year-old Glenmorian boy named Alric watches his knight die and learns, in shame, what it means to hide.He should have been left behind by history.Instead, he is taken in by the Order of the Black Cross, an elite holy road order that does not merely hunt evil — it witnesses it, records it, rescues from it, and drags it into judgment. Under the brutal discipline of Sir Edric and the terrifying spiritual severity of Father Halvyr, Alric begins the first road of his life: not as hero, not as chosen saviour, but as a frightened child forced to become useful.What begins with burial, bells, and correction soon deepens into something far darker. Chapel goods vanish. Travellers disappear. Roads fall quiet in the wrong ways. Missing names gather on the walls of a reclaimed hold. Then the truth emerges: a hidden market is moving through the old quarry roads of Frankia, turning human souls into counted burden beneath false witness, stolen routes, and corrupted holy administration.As Alric grows from a boy who hid into a road witness whose marks can be trusted, he helps reclaim a lawless fort, carry warnings through hostile roads, recover the living from transport carts, expose the House of Count, and stand inside the counting chambers of structured evil. But the more truth is uncovered, the wider the horror becomes. The hidden market is not one cave, one cart, or one wicked band. It is a chain — and behind it sits a man who worships arithmetic more than God.The Black Cross: Crown of Azrael is a grimdark LitRPG of faith, witness, rescue, discipline, and slow-earned growth. It is the story of a child becoming foundational in a world that does not wait for children to become ready.This is not the tale of a boy becoming powerful too quickly.It is the tale of a boy becoming reliable where the world is most broken. Read more