Ballad of a Dead World
Audiobook
Ballad of a Dead World
The untamed magic of the Old World is rising. A fantasy from the first winner of Hvězda inkoustu.
Hundreds of years ago, a magical apocalypse split the world in two. No one knows exactly why, and Seeker Robin Pemberton hopes to become the first scientist to find out. She doesn't hesitate to take risks and travel to the Old World, where magic still works, but is volatile and can kill.
Kai Austen – captain of a unit of Border guards – knows all about it. His brother accompanied the scientist on one of her expeditions and never returned. Kai can't forgive her for this, and during a confrontation, he chases her across the Border to the other side. Due to the ever-present threats, they form a fragile alliance and soon discover that the magic of the Old World has begun to rot. Can they avert the impending doom that threatens to engulf the entire continent in time?
Alžběta Bílková
Alžběta Bílková was born in Prague in 1994. She graduated with a master's degree in History of European Culture from the Catholic Theological Faculty at Charles University. She has been writing since childhood; her debut novel, Z Kouře a kamene, won the first year of the Hvězda inkoustu competition from the publisher Fragment, followed by the Slavic mythology-inspired fantasy Kosti Mraza. Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies Nejkrásnější dárek (Yoli, 2020), Krásky a vetřelci (Epocha, 2021), and Všechny barvy duhy (Yoli, 2021). In her free time, besides writing, she enjoys reading, film and TV series, and playing TTRPGs (usually) as a Dungeon Master. In the summer months, she works as a leader at a children's camp. Together with the bookstagrammer and YouTuber Zuzka (@Zuzkaanotuje), she records and publishes the podcast Holky jdou na draka, which focuses on fantasy.
