This story lives for free on Royal Road, and it always will. Every chapter publishes there twice a week, and when the final chapter of a book goes out, the eBook goes wide - available everywhere, under The Victis System series. That is where it begins, and that is where it will always be. The physical books exist for a different reason. Every three novellas form a small arc - a movement in a larger story.
Those arcs are gathered and printed together. Every four of those printed arcs become a hardcover. Not because the story changes in print. Because some things deserve to be held. I believe completely in what this story is trying to say. That you are enough. That the floor was always there. That the only thing standing between you and solid ground is the willingness to stop running long enough to feel it beneath your feet.
I want everyone to read this. I want no one to be kept from it by what it costs. The eBook is free on Royal Road under The Victis System. The print exists for something the digital world cannot give you - something in your hands, something you can press into the hands of someone else without asking for their email address or their login. A story no algorithm can resurface, no platform can quietly remove, no licensing agreement can take back.
When you own a physical book, you own it. No one can hide it from you. If you bought this book, thank you. If someone handed it to you, thank them. And if you find yourself somewhere in these pages - in the breathless space of not being enough, in the frantic distance between the ceiling and the floor - then this was always meant for you. You are, and always have been, the firm floor beneath the noise.
You are, and always have been enough. - Derek J. Perna
Those arcs are gathered and printed together. Every four of those printed arcs become a hardcover. Not because the story changes in print. Because some things deserve to be held. I believe completely in what this story is trying to say. That you are enough. That the floor was always there. That the only thing standing between you and solid ground is the willingness to stop running long enough to feel it beneath your feet.
I want everyone to read this. I want no one to be kept from it by what it costs. The eBook is free on Royal Road under The Victis System. The print exists for something the digital world cannot give you - something in your hands, something you can press into the hands of someone else without asking for their email address or their login. A story no algorithm can resurface, no platform can quietly remove, no licensing agreement can take back.
When you own a physical book, you own it. No one can hide it from you. If you bought this book, thank you. If someone handed it to you, thank them. And if you find yourself somewhere in these pages - in the breathless space of not being enough, in the frantic distance between the ceiling and the floor - then this was always meant for you. You are, and always have been, the firm floor beneath the noise.
You are, and always have been enough. - Derek J. Perna
