Throne of Ash and Shadow: An Unsettled Dawn

In Lumina, a city powered by strictly controlled magic, some secrets are deadly. To possess forbidden power is to be hunted. To be different is to be damned.

Elara, a quiet apothecary's apprentice, navigates the grimy, shadowed alleys of the Warrens, her life a carefully constructed lie. She guards a dangerous truth: an affinity for shadow magic, the Void's Touch, a power so reviled by the ruling Guild that discovery means a fate worse than death. Her only goal is to remain invisible, a ghost in the system.

But when terrifying surges of chaotic energy begin to tear through the city's underbelly, Elara's world collides with Cassian Vale - a disgraced Guild Investigator, as ruthless as he is enigmatic. Stripped of his status but not his skill, Vale is a man driven by his own shadowed past and a relentless pursuit of a truth the Guild wants buried. He suspects Elara knows more than she reveals, and he's not accustomed to taking no for an answer.

Forced into an uneasy alliance born of blackmail and mutual desperation, Elara and Cassian are plunged into a dark labyrinth of political intrigue, ancient conspiracies, and the rising threat of the fanatical Ash Collective, who seek to shatter Lumina's magical foundations. As Cassian peels back layers of deception that reach into the Guild's highest echelons, Elara must risk using the very magic that could condemn her, walking a razor's edge between survival and becoming the monster the Guild has always claimed she is.

An Unsettled Dawn is the gripping first novel in The Ashen Crown trilogy, a dark fantasy epic where forbidden power meets gritty realism. If you crave tales of morally grey heroes, intricate conspiracies, and a world where every choice has devastating consequences, then prepare to lose yourself in the shadows of Lumina. The city's fragile order is about to break, and the dawn that follows will be anything but peaceful.

What secrets lie buried in the heart of the Guild? Who is the mysterious Harbinger? And can trust ever bloom in a garden of lies? Find out in An Unsettled Dawn.