First published 2025
Wren Embervale is an alchemist, a poisoner, and a queen who hasn't claimed her throne yet. To take it back from the usurper Silas, she needs an army, and that army comes with a price: a betrothal to Lord Darian Devereux. The arrangement is logical. Wren understands logic. What she can't reason away is Torj Elderbrock, her Warsword, the man soul-bonded to her, who is slowly losing his strength to a creeping poison she hasn't found a cure for yet. She plays the dutiful fiancée at court while Silas tightens his grip on the midrealms through shadow alchemy. Every day she holds the performance together, and every day the cracks spread wider. She needs Darian's soldiers. She needs her kingdom. She needs Torj to live. The finale to the Ashes of Thezmarr series presses Wren between political survival and the bone-deep pull of a bond she cannot dissolve, building toward a war that will cost her something she cannot afford to lose.
Genres: romance, fantasy, dark-fantasy, epic-fantasy, fantasy-romance
Vibes: dark, emotionally-complex, fast-paced, gritty, intense, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity, political-marriage, slow-burn, soul-bonded
Setting: Midrealms
Period: Ashes of Thezmarr series
542 pages · Paperback · Alchemy
Content warnings: death, violence, war