A Crown of Iron Stars
At dawn, the Pale Cardinal host crests the ridge above Hollowmere, and recruit Kaelen Vey sees them first. A dark tide of bone-white banners and bloodless sorcery, advancing on the frozen trench where he and a handful of battered soldiers make their last stand. Across the besieged realm, the immortal Emperor's grip on the iron throne grows brittle. His princes circle like carrion: Cassiel Aurelan, the dutiful heir who will inherit a kingdom of ashes, and Lucien Aurelan, the hidden brother who moves among the common soldiers as The Whisper, a shadow playing a game no one understands. At master-at-arms Yarrow's training yards, Kaelen trains alongside recruits Pipe and Wren, earning the respect of war-hardened Thessa Ironheart. He begins to suspect the war he fights is not the war that matters. When enemy sorcerers breach the line and a Glass Wyrm wakes in forgotten vaults beneath the siege works, Kaelen must choose: die anonymously in the trench where his legend began, or rise with The Whisper into a conspiracy that will cost him everything, the woman he loves, the brotherhood he swore to protect, and the iron crown that has crushed a thousand would-be kings. The Emperor is watching. The Pale host is coming. And the throne will not stay empty forever.