The Last Rites of an Empty City

In a plague-stricken medieval city, a young bell-ringer is sealed alone in the tower of Saint Margrave's Cathedral with one terrible duty: to toll the great bell for every dead soul carried through the square below. As carts of the dead emerge from the fog and the city collapses into silence, Rowan becomes the last witness to a world being emptied of ritual, mercy, and human touch. What begins as an act of faith becomes a descent into hunger, isolation, and spiritual terror.
As the dead multiply and the living vanish behind shuttered doors, Rowan clings to his vow that no soul will pass uncounted and alone, even as his own body and mind begin to fail. Written in rich, haunting prose, this is a gothic literary horror novel about plague, devotion, grief, and the thin line between sacred duty and madness. Dark, atmospheric, and deeply meditative, it explores what remains of faith when heaven is silent-and what answers may rise from beneath the dead themselves.