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The Twelfth World #2
The Cure for Living, Part One
“I’ll tell you a story,” the Visionary said to the young woman. “When I’m done, I promise I’ll undo these chains and let you go.” He met her gaze, his eyes as deep as the space between worlds. “You will stay.”
In the oasis city of Qurrâb, wealth, power, and fame all bow to a single yâsh, the virtue of one's heart. There, a thirteen-year-old girl with a mind like no other resolves to become the brightest soul history has ever seen, inspiring others to follow her example. Her goal? To unite humanity and vanquish the Darkness, the destructive force within all of us that makes the world the wretched place that it is.
When veteran Jespar tre Moreste reaches the fabled City of Sages forty years later, his only concern is finding Loanne, the sister he once abandoned. Little does he know that his journey will soon lead him into the dark underbelly of the supposed paradise, where ruthless crime syndicates mingle with death cults and forbidden schools of philosophy. As old wounds resurface and reality fractures, Jespar realizes that even after the tumultuous events of Kilay, he still has demons of his own to conquer — and that often, the most charming masks hide the vilest of minds.
This is the first part of The Cure for Living, a single story told across two volumes.
Closing Jespar’s saga with a haunting blend of mystery, dark fantasy, and thriller, The Cure for Living examines the cost of obsession, the fragility of identity, and the dark side of humankind.
In the oasis city of Qurrâb, wealth, power, and fame all bow to a single yâsh, the virtue of one's heart. There, a thirteen-year-old girl with a mind like no other resolves to become the brightest soul history has ever seen, inspiring others to follow her example. Her goal? To unite humanity and vanquish the Darkness, the destructive force within all of us that makes the world the wretched place that it is.
When veteran Jespar tre Moreste reaches the fabled City of Sages forty years later, his only concern is finding Loanne, the sister he once abandoned. Little does he know that his journey will soon lead him into the dark underbelly of the supposed paradise, where ruthless crime syndicates mingle with death cults and forbidden schools of philosophy. As old wounds resurface and reality fractures, Jespar realizes that even after the tumultuous events of Kilay, he still has demons of his own to conquer — and that often, the most charming masks hide the vilest of minds.
This is the first part of The Cure for Living, a single story told across two volumes.
Closing Jespar’s saga with a haunting blend of mystery, dark fantasy, and thriller, The Cure for Living examines the cost of obsession, the fragility of identity, and the dark side of humankind.
593 pages, Paperback
First published February 26, 2026
About the author
Nicolas Lietzau
5 books512 followersI’m an independent German author best known for my writing for the award-winning indie videogame Enderal, which grew from niche favorite to cult hit.
Growing up in both the heart of Munich and a bucolic Bavarian farmhouse, my love for stories began by reading German fairytales in the attic and was nurtured by copious amounts of fiction, ranging from fantasy to horror to historical to literary.
Many things have shaped my writing: a turbulent childhood, living in five different countries, and a loss of reality I suffered due to experiments in lucid dreaming. I feel drawn to people and experiences off the beaten path and try to make my work reflect that. I currently live as a digital nomad traveling across Europe as I work on the second Enderal novel.
Growing up in both the heart of Munich and a bucolic Bavarian farmhouse, my love for stories began by reading German fairytales in the attic and was nurtured by copious amounts of fiction, ranging from fantasy to horror to historical to literary.
Many things have shaped my writing: a turbulent childhood, living in five different countries, and a loss of reality I suffered due to experiments in lucid dreaming. I feel drawn to people and experiences off the beaten path and try to make my work reflect that. I currently live as a digital nomad traveling across Europe as I work on the second Enderal novel.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 8, 2026
”The world is ill, Loanne. I have the cure.”
I don’t normally write long reviews, but seeing how barren the review section is for this book, I’ll give it a shot. It’s the least I can do for what will likely end up being my favourite read of the year. This review will be posted for both Parts 1 and 2. I firmly believe that The Cure For Living should be read, rated, and reviewed as one continuous ~950 page story (as it was written) rather than in the two physically separate books it’s delivered in.
Cure follows two characters whose stories first seem completely separate but later entwine in the most delicious way as the mystery reveals itself. We have Jespar, our MC from Dreams of the Dying, a walking disaster of a man who is hell bent on a quest to find his sister. Just like in Dreams, Jespar is once again:
- depressed and drowning in self-sabotaging behaviour
- lowkey a hoe
- hallucinating (this guy’s sanity is CONSTANTLY getting a beating… RIP...)
In addition, we have a new MC: Quriyani, an autistic scholar set on a mission to cure the world of its “Darkness”. I really must highlight just how well written of a character she is. Perhaps in part due to the use of 2nd person POV, she comes alive on the pages, and the autism rep is so good. Nicolas does not pull any punches, he never tries to make any part of her uniqueness palatable (as should always be the case when writing neurodivergent characters!).
I did re-read Dreams before diving into this one, and while doing so did slightly enhance the experience, I think that readers would be safe to read Cure even a few years after reading its predecessor. A quick re-cap of Dreams’s main events is included, which is a good enough refresher. This sequel does reference events of Dreams, but is set in a completely different land and its plot stands relatively alone. And— wow. Allow me to praise just how much effort was put into the worldbuilding. I cannot think of a descriptor other than simply rich in all aspects. There is absolutely no “hand-waving”, as is common in many fantasy books. Everything from the technology to the linguistic idioms is fleshed out to the max, everything has a thought-out explanation with roots in this specific society’s culture. It does get a bit challenging sometimes with so many foreign terms and the fact that everyone has multiple names/titles/honorifics, but the glossary and character index at the back of the book helped out. Nicolas Lietzau is one of the greatest worldbuilding talents whose work I have ever had the pleasure to read. I mean, come on. A modern fantasy book that contains not only one but two professionally developed fictional languages? He could have just used Arabic and called it a day, but The Twelfth Word is such a labour of love and you can feel that any question about laziness in its creation would be a grave insult.
If I had one quibble with the book, it would be that it is very long. Some of the internal monologues can get a tiny bit repetitive. It is definitely a slow burn that rewards you (by God does it reward you) but you have to put in the patience for it to get there. It takes a LONG time for Jespar and Quriyani’s stories to start overlapping, so up until that point it somewhat feels like reading two completely unrelated stories. I think Part 1 could be shaved down a bit. Most of it is build-up for the avalanche that is the entirety of Part 2. This is part of the reason why I think the books should be reviewed as a single continuous story; if hard-pressed to rate them separately, I would probably give Part 1 a 4/5 and Part 2 a complete and utter 5/5, but the excellence of Part 2 is only possible through the groundwork of Part 1 the same way that a lone book’s climax is only possible through the chapters leading up to it.
Cure is a blend of genres ranging from action-packed fantasy to philosophical character-driven drama, but to me its identity boils down to a psychological mystery thriller. The journey we go on - both in terms of plot reveals and emotional arcs - is full of twists and turns that physically pained me. We go to some pretty dark places and our MCs do some pretty dark things. Oh, how I love stories about cults. Death cults? Even better.
Underlying this novel - as well as Dreams - is a current of rage at the state of the world, of the helplessness in the face of all the pain it’s built on. And I think that is what speaks to a lot of fans, myself included. It’s been a very long time since I was this emotionally moved by a book. I thought I was going to hold out on crying, but then the epilogue came: simultaneously gut-punching and healing, bitter and hopeful. Nicolas does not give us the “right” ending, but the “real” one. A raw and authentic conclusion to one of the most raw and authentic characters I’ve ever come across.
All in all? Just so fucking good man. Worth the 5+ year wait for sure.
~
Pre-Review
The release of this book is just another thing I’m adding to my short but ongoing list of “things keeping me tethered to a sane existence”
I don’t normally write long reviews, but seeing how barren the review section is for this book, I’ll give it a shot. It’s the least I can do for what will likely end up being my favourite read of the year. This review will be posted for both Parts 1 and 2. I firmly believe that The Cure For Living should be read, rated, and reviewed as one continuous ~950 page story (as it was written) rather than in the two physically separate books it’s delivered in.
Cure follows two characters whose stories first seem completely separate but later entwine in the most delicious way as the mystery reveals itself. We have Jespar, our MC from Dreams of the Dying, a walking disaster of a man who is hell bent on a quest to find his sister. Just like in Dreams, Jespar is once again:
- depressed and drowning in self-sabotaging behaviour
- lowkey a hoe
- hallucinating (this guy’s sanity is CONSTANTLY getting a beating… RIP...)
In addition, we have a new MC: Quriyani, an autistic scholar set on a mission to cure the world of its “Darkness”. I really must highlight just how well written of a character she is. Perhaps in part due to the use of 2nd person POV, she comes alive on the pages, and the autism rep is so good. Nicolas does not pull any punches, he never tries to make any part of her uniqueness palatable (as should always be the case when writing neurodivergent characters!).
I did re-read Dreams before diving into this one, and while doing so did slightly enhance the experience, I think that readers would be safe to read Cure even a few years after reading its predecessor. A quick re-cap of Dreams’s main events is included, which is a good enough refresher. This sequel does reference events of Dreams, but is set in a completely different land and its plot stands relatively alone. And— wow. Allow me to praise just how much effort was put into the worldbuilding. I cannot think of a descriptor other than simply rich in all aspects. There is absolutely no “hand-waving”, as is common in many fantasy books. Everything from the technology to the linguistic idioms is fleshed out to the max, everything has a thought-out explanation with roots in this specific society’s culture. It does get a bit challenging sometimes with so many foreign terms and the fact that everyone has multiple names/titles/honorifics, but the glossary and character index at the back of the book helped out. Nicolas Lietzau is one of the greatest worldbuilding talents whose work I have ever had the pleasure to read. I mean, come on. A modern fantasy book that contains not only one but two professionally developed fictional languages? He could have just used Arabic and called it a day, but The Twelfth Word is such a labour of love and you can feel that any question about laziness in its creation would be a grave insult.
If I had one quibble with the book, it would be that it is very long. Some of the internal monologues can get a tiny bit repetitive. It is definitely a slow burn that rewards you (by God does it reward you) but you have to put in the patience for it to get there. It takes a LONG time for Jespar and Quriyani’s stories to start overlapping, so up until that point it somewhat feels like reading two completely unrelated stories. I think Part 1 could be shaved down a bit. Most of it is build-up for the avalanche that is the entirety of Part 2. This is part of the reason why I think the books should be reviewed as a single continuous story; if hard-pressed to rate them separately, I would probably give Part 1 a 4/5 and Part 2 a complete and utter 5/5, but the excellence of Part 2 is only possible through the groundwork of Part 1 the same way that a lone book’s climax is only possible through the chapters leading up to it.
Cure is a blend of genres ranging from action-packed fantasy to philosophical character-driven drama, but to me its identity boils down to a psychological mystery thriller. The journey we go on - both in terms of plot reveals and emotional arcs - is full of twists and turns that physically pained me. We go to some pretty dark places and our MCs do some pretty dark things. Oh, how I love stories about cults. Death cults? Even better.
Underlying this novel - as well as Dreams - is a current of rage at the state of the world, of the helplessness in the face of all the pain it’s built on. And I think that is what speaks to a lot of fans, myself included. It’s been a very long time since I was this emotionally moved by a book. I thought I was going to hold out on crying, but then the epilogue came: simultaneously gut-punching and healing, bitter and hopeful. Nicolas does not give us the “right” ending, but the “real” one. A raw and authentic conclusion to one of the most raw and authentic characters I’ve ever come across.
All in all? Just so fucking good man. Worth the 5+ year wait for sure.
~
Pre-Review
The release of this book is just another thing I’m adding to my short but ongoing list of “things keeping me tethered to a sane existence”
Want to Read
December 20, 2025Yes, finally a release date and cover reveal!
Love the cover art, can't wait to get my hands on this, I absolutely LOVED book one:)
Love the cover art, can't wait to get my hands on this, I absolutely LOVED book one:)
wishlist
November 22, 2023I can not wait to get this next year, come on 2024!!!!!
May 5, 2026
“But to live life this way, always brooding, always doubting, always judging, was like staring into a pit as life rushed past. No matter how your story ended, you had lived true to your ideals, had tried to make a difference and, in doing so, changed the lives of many, and that was something no one could ever take from you”
Wow. Nicolaus did it again. I won’t say too much because I still have The Cure for Living pt 2 to go but this was by far my favorite book that I’ve read this year. Jespar coming into this one was just as crazy, if not crazier, than he was in the first novel, but this time I felt like I was rooting for him way more and not as frustrated with his decisions as I was in Dreams. Quriyani for me was the star of the show, from her chromatism, to overcoming the Prism Veil and becoming Awi Munthim, Nicolaus does such a great job making her character feel real but also extraordinary at the same time in this world. Everything about the system of yash was well-thought out, going from how it feels like meritocracy a bit and it being well intended to protect its citizens with how safe the city is and how great the law is but also how harsh the system can make its citizens lives’, such as with Yarazi, feeling demoralized and too prideful, which can ruin your life. and I loved how much thought went into the city of Qurrab and their language as well, as Lietzau also did with Makehu in DotD. I honestly feel bad for waiting until I got the physicals to finally start diving into this but once I did, I was once again swept away by the world of ‘Enderal.’ Those last few chapters had me forgetting there was another book for me to go through. What a great way to close out part 1.
“Yâsh culture was the perfect example of how quickly personal adoration can devolve into vilification, a process driven as much by the need to cope with feelings of betrayal and disappointment as by an attempt to impose order on a chaotic world.”
Wow. Nicolaus did it again. I won’t say too much because I still have The Cure for Living pt 2 to go but this was by far my favorite book that I’ve read this year. Jespar coming into this one was just as crazy, if not crazier, than he was in the first novel, but this time I felt like I was rooting for him way more and not as frustrated with his decisions as I was in Dreams. Quriyani for me was the star of the show, from her chromatism, to overcoming the Prism Veil and becoming Awi Munthim, Nicolaus does such a great job making her character feel real but also extraordinary at the same time in this world. Everything about the system of yash was well-thought out, going from how it feels like meritocracy a bit and it being well intended to protect its citizens with how safe the city is and how great the law is but also how harsh the system can make its citizens lives’, such as with Yarazi, feeling demoralized and too prideful, which can ruin your life. and I loved how much thought went into the city of Qurrab and their language as well, as Lietzau also did with Makehu in DotD. I honestly feel bad for waiting until I got the physicals to finally start diving into this but once I did, I was once again swept away by the world of ‘Enderal.’ Those last few chapters had me forgetting there was another book for me to go through. What a great way to close out part 1.
“Yâsh culture was the perfect example of how quickly personal adoration can devolve into vilification, a process driven as much by the need to cope with feelings of betrayal and disappointment as by an attempt to impose order on a chaotic world.”
Did Not Finish
May 16, 2026300 pages in and I'm just losing interest in all of it. The story seems to address all avenues of mind wondering by the author making for an extremely slow pace. Sadly, I can't seem to find sufficient purpose or meaning in it.
Will likely come back to this one when an audiobook is released.
Will likely come back to this one when an audiobook is released.
May 22, 2026
“Life teaches by taking away.”
My review for parts 1 & 2:
SUCH an interesting and engrossing story. The world building is amazing. I love how the concept of yâsh is such a core part of Khirân society. Qûriyâni is my favorite. Go read it!!
My review for parts 1 & 2:
SUCH an interesting and engrossing story. The world building is amazing. I love how the concept of yâsh is such a core part of Khirân society. Qûriyâni is my favorite. Go read it!!
anticipating
December 17, 2025There's a cover and a release-date! I'm desperately hoping it's real this time! @Nicolas Lietzau, I'm attempting to wait patiently, but I needed this book yesterday.
May 8, 2026
Rating will be on Part 2.
Hard to fully form my opinions as the book isn’t really over but ultimately this is fantastic. Perhaps it’s not hitting the same way dotd did, but it’s hard competition when you’re my most anticipated book of the past 5 years up against one of the most emotionally impactful books Ive read.
The worldbuilding feels so rich and vibrant and the discussions being had so far are so fascinating and engaging. My biggest surprise is Qûriyanî. What an incredible character, her POVs have genuinely been the highlight so far and I’m so devastated for her.
I cannot wait to see where part two goes and how Jespar’s arc is going to progress.
Hard to fully form my opinions as the book isn’t really over but ultimately this is fantastic. Perhaps it’s not hitting the same way dotd did, but it’s hard competition when you’re my most anticipated book of the past 5 years up against one of the most emotionally impactful books Ive read.
The worldbuilding feels so rich and vibrant and the discussions being had so far are so fascinating and engaging. My biggest surprise is Qûriyanî. What an incredible character, her POVs have genuinely been the highlight so far and I’m so devastated for her.
I cannot wait to see where part two goes and how Jespar’s arc is going to progress.
Want to Read
March 9, 2024Can't wait!
May 18, 2026
Posting the same review for Book 1 and 2, as they're really a single story.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Dream of The Dying and was looking forward to the sequels. The books did not disappoint!
Once again, they are quite long, but very easy to read. The story is rich in world building and it sets up an intriguing slow burn mystery. Jespar's character has progressed a lot since the last book, and it makes him a more enjoyable character to follow. Jespar is a troubled person whose trauma sometimes led him to make frustrating decisions. But seeing his progress, I grew to appreciate his struggles in the first book more.
Without going into spoilers, the second protagonist Quriyani stole the show for me. From the way she perceives the world to how her story unfolds - the author has not skipped a beat with that one!
Really enjoyed my time with The Cure for Living, I'd say it surpasses the first book overall.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Dream of The Dying and was looking forward to the sequels. The books did not disappoint!
Once again, they are quite long, but very easy to read. The story is rich in world building and it sets up an intriguing slow burn mystery. Jespar's character has progressed a lot since the last book, and it makes him a more enjoyable character to follow. Jespar is a troubled person whose trauma sometimes led him to make frustrating decisions. But seeing his progress, I grew to appreciate his struggles in the first book more.
Without going into spoilers, the second protagonist Quriyani stole the show for me. From the way she perceives the world to how her story unfolds - the author has not skipped a beat with that one!
Really enjoyed my time with The Cure for Living, I'd say it surpasses the first book overall.
March 7, 2026
Going on my dnf shelf as about ten percent of the way in I still had no idea where it was going.
March 7, 2026
No idea how this will play out, but it’s been quite a ride. Really excited for part two.
Want to Read
April 21, 2026Gonna read it when it comes out somewhere with cheaper shipping ;~;
Also why is his last name different? If theres a reason given in Book 2, then sure i guess, but why?
Also why is his last name different? If theres a reason given in Book 2, then sure i guess, but why?
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews