THE HELD
There are some ideas we can only talk about in stories
some paths we can only walk when we leave our world behind
some truths that must be imagined before they can be known.
THE HELD
An Alternate-Reality Fantasy
Set in a technologically primitive land, The Held tells the story of a stone smith’s son, exiled from his agrarian home, and the woman from a tribe of hunters who helps him survive. Although raised to be enemies and determined to retain the cultures that define them, they are drawn to each other by the mystery and promise of a wholly different way of living in the world. As they struggle to adapt to their lives as outcasts, they learn to trust and depend on each other. Yet when it becomes clear that the ends they seek cannot be reconciled, they are forced to decide if the bond between them will require more than they can give. Their story, echoing the conflict we all face between the commitments that allow us to belong and the freedom we need to remain individuals, points to a way of being that does not fit neatly into either of their worlds. Or ours.
A DIVIDED LAND
THE HELD
Before the oldest stories were told, the lands of the Held were shaped by those who knew the law. All who live in these lands are skilled in the trade to which they are called and governed by a cryptic system of precepts known as the law. The law gives order to their days and makes sense of their lives. The law holds them, as they hold it. They seek no other end than to earn a place within the Held, and have no greater fear than to be exiled and forced to live as Shilka.
THE SHILKA
The Shilka, a tribe of adept hunters, live outside the lands of the Held and apart from the law. Restless and fierce, they follow only their color, an intuitive understanding of who they are and what they can become. The bonds they form and break are of their own choosing. They are wild, vulnerable, dangerous and proud, and the lives of the Held are as appalling and meaningless to them as their lives are to the Held.
