A Crown of Salt and Bone

When Elara Voss inherits her mother's apothecary shop in the fog-choked marshlands of Dunfeld, she also inherits a leather notebook filled with cures that should not exist , and the attention of a king willing to burn the wetlands to claim it. The marsh has always been a place of half-truths and copper-smelling rain, but when a stranger arrives at her door carrying a corpse that refuses to rot, Elara's quiet life among drying herbs and loyal neighbors shatters overnight. Lord Aldric Crane's men ride hard from the capital. The Aldorian Chancellor's eyes are already on the town. And somewhere beyond the salt flats, a plague is turning flesh to bone. Drawn into an alliance with Sylvaine Crane, a noblewoman with secrets sharp enough to wound, Elara must decode her mother's dying instructions while staying one step ahead of hunters who believe the cures belong to the throne. As smugglers, apothecaries' sons, and dying children pull her deeper into a conspiracy that spans coast and court, Elara faces the only question that matters: is the crown of salt and bone a weapon to be seized, or a curse to be buried?