Elsa Schutt knows what it costs to refuse an empire. She fears what it may cost her family to say yes.

Amsterdam, 1595. Elsa helped the Schutts survive persecution. Now Wilhelm and his son Jansen forge the iron that holds Dutch ships together and keeps cannons firing. Their work offers the children a safer life. But each new contract ties that future to merchants who can take it away with a stroke of the pen.

The Dutch Republic is growing rich, and its dangers reach into the Schutts’ home. Naval guns thunder off Gibraltar. Plague empties Amsterdam’s streets. A storm can swallow a ship and the wages a family needs to survive. Anna meets each crisis head-on. Willemina studies the ledgers, alert to the debts and promises hidden among the figures. Elsa watches the next generation chase the security she once wished for them.

Years bring marriage, loss, and choices that divide those who love each other. Jansen’s son Hawk inherits the family’s courage, but shares and signatures now carry more power than his grandfather’s hammer. When speculation threatens their home, young Grietje insists on a voice in what they will risk—and what they will refuse to give up.

Inspired by William H Brothers’ family history,

*Empire’s Cost: Forged in Paper* is Book Two of *The 500-Year Journey*. This historical family saga carries listeners from Amsterdam’s forges and canals through battle at sea toward the promise of New Amsterdam.

The Schutts once risked death to keep their freedom. How much of it will they trade for the life they hope to give their children?