Some wounds never heal. Some worlds were broken long before the war began.

General Gerel has spent his life serving the Tiger Kingdom — conquering cities, crushing rebellions, and learning not to believe in miracles. When he is sent to the neighboring Dragon Kingdom on the eve of war, he expects arrogance, weakness, and political games.

Instead, he meets Yukinari.

Young emperor of the Dragon Kingdom, Yukinari is brilliant, unsettling, and dangerously devoted to peace in a world built on violence. His dream of uniting the fractured kingdoms feels naive, impossible… and terrifyingly sincere.

Gerel does not trust him. Perhaps that is why he cannot forget him.

As war consumes the kingdoms, betrayal destroys the Dragon Kingdom from within. Yukinari dies — and returns as something hollow, silent, and no longer entirely human.

Haunted by guilt and the ruins left behind, Gerel is forced to govern the land he helped destroy while the ghost of the man he failed follows him through war, dreams, and memory.

But somewhere beyond the steppes, beyond the wastelands at the edge of the world, there may still be a way to restore what was lost.

The Broken World is a lyrical East Asian–inspired fantasy about war, grief, impossible ideals, and the people who continue searching for hope after history has already broken them.