The Relic Guild

Edward Cox
Fantasy
Cover image for The Relic Guild series
Fantasy

Summary

In the shadowed alleyways and ancient ruins of Relic City, Kaela Morn navigates a world where relics of immense power are both coveted and cursed. Her search for a lost artifact entwines her fate with a clandestine guild of relic hunters, each driven by motives as tangled as the city's labyrinthine streets. As rival factions close in, her skills and resolve are tested in perilous encounters that threaten to expose secrets buried for centuries. With every step, she uncovers truths about her heritage and the true cost of power, forging alliances and enemies in a city where trust is scarce and survival is an art.

'The Relic Guild' stands as a notable entry in Edward Cox's oeuvre, showcasing his mastery of blending intricate worldbuilding with compelling character arcs. While it hasn't garnered the same level of mainstream awards as some of his other works, it has developed a dedicated following among fans of adventure fantasy. Critics often praise its inventive magical systems and vivid settings, though some note that its pacing can lag in parts. Overall, it is viewed as a solid, engaging series that highlights Cox’s ability to craft immersive, layered narratives that appeal to both young adults and seasoned fantasy enthusiasts.

Main Titles

1
The Relic Guild
Book cover for The Relic Guild
Talen Kest is a young apprentice in a city built on the bones of older, stranger civilizations, apprenticed to the Relic Guild whose trade is stabilizing and selling artifacts that bend the rules...
Talen Kest is a young apprentice in a city built on the bones of older, stranger civilizations, apprenticed to the Relic Guild whose trade is stabilizing and selling artifacts that bend the rules of nature. When a shipment arrives damaged and a small, humming relic refuses to stay inert, Talen finds himself trapped between the Guild’s rigid safety protocols and a secretive group who believes relics are instruments of memory, not commerce. The hum in his hands begins to answer his thoughts, drawing up images of places and people he has no right to know. As Talen follows those visions he learns that some relics remember violence and sorrow as if alive, and that the Guild is hiding a ledger of past misuses. He must decide whether to expose a cover-up that could unravel the city's fragile peace or protect the Guild he has sworn to serve. The choices he makes bind him to a handful of allies—a skeptical Guildwright, a streetwise cartographer, and a child who claims to hear the relics’ songs—and set him on a perilous path from apprentice to guardian of things that should perhaps be buried.
2014 Year
6 Publications
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2
The Cathedral of Known Things
Book cover for The Cathedral of Known Things
After the revelations that shook the Relic Guild, Talen's life is no longer that of a student. Drawn to the Cathedral of Known Things, a towering archive where relics are catalogued and worshipped,...
After the revelations that shook the Relic Guild, Talen's life is no longer that of a student. Drawn to the Cathedral of Known Things, a towering archive where relics are catalogued and worshipped, he seeks answers about the relics’ memories and the history they protect. The Cathedral’s keepers promise order and interpretation, but their doctrine insists relics are to be possessed by the faithful, not freed. Talen becomes entangled with a faction who believes the Cathedral's rituals trap fragments of lived experience, rewriting lives into neat dogma. As he digs deeper among the Cathedral's stacks and hidden chambers, Talen discovers a map of lost testimonies—voices erased by consecration. He must choose whether to rescue those stolen memories and risk unleashing truths that will topple comfortable narratives. His companions from the Guild are pulled into the Cathedral’s politics, and Talen learns the cost of asking the wrong question: the more he retrieves, the more the Cathedral tightens its grasp on him and the city’s fragile sense of identity.
2015 Year
5 Publications
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3
The Watcher of Dead Time
Book cover for The Watcher of Dead Time
The rescue of stolen memories from the Cathedral fractures the city’s illusions and draws the attention of the Watcher of Dead Time, a being rumored to steward the moments people think gone for...
The rescue of stolen memories from the Cathedral fractures the city’s illusions and draws the attention of the Watcher of Dead Time, a being rumored to steward the moments people think gone for good. Talen and his allies must navigate an expanding danger: relics that no longer merely remember but refuse to let time move on. The Watcher’s presence warps clocks and minds, and old wounds reopen as ghosts of events that should have been buried begin to step out of their frames. Talen faces the choice he has avoided since the first humming relic: confront a force that feeds on unconsummated pasts or let the city slide into a stasis where pain is immortalized for safety. Allies fracture, loyalties are tested, and Talen must use everything he has learned about relics, memory, and the stakes of truth to bargain with the Watcher. The final struggle is intimate and public at once, forcing Talen to reckon with what it means to carry memory forward and whether some pasts must be allowed to die for the living to survive.
2016 Year
4 Publications
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Additional Titles

All-In-One

Short Fiction

Hemlock
Book cover for Hemlock
2018 Year
1 Publications
Not Available for Purchase