Thirty years after the battle that poisoned the land, aging paladin Rogar gathers a fraying company to recover a severed hand and to face the darkness spreading across Aeloria. Aeloria began as a game he and his best friend built as teenagers. They crossed into it. One of them never came back the same.

Among those who ride with him are a young spellcaster who can't cast spells, a monk who has spent a lifetime containing a killing rage, and a thief who trusts almost no one. The quest holds until Rogar confesses what he has carried for decades, changing everything they all thought they knew. Now the boy whose magic can't even light a fire may be the only one who can open the way between worlds again. The price of that crossing, and the quiet choice that follows, will decide what remains of either realm.

For readers who remember building fantasy worlds around a kitchen table, and have wondered what would happen if one of those worlds remembered its creators. Lean sword-and-sorcery. Found family, aging blades, the cost of creation. The portal unease of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians and the crew tension of Scott Lynch: a campaign that outgrew the table, without a thousand extra pages.

Crossings to Bear is a standalone novel of 47,000 words. Adult language and violence. Not a children’s book.