The Thornbound King
Aldric Vane bears the debt-mark of a traitor on his cheek, and he has spent years sharpening his hatred into a blade fine enough to cut down the man who put it there. But when a dying stranger in the harbor district of Sevrith presses a thorn-carved relic into his hand and whispers a name, Vaelith Orryn, Aldric's hunt for vengeance collides with something far older and more dangerous than his own fury. The Briarwood, a forbidden place even the old gods forgot, is waking, and the fire Aldric has carried in his blood since childhood is not a curse. It is a key. Hunted by The Cutter, a masked blade-sworn who leaves white roses on his victims, and shadowed by the iron will of his own grandfather, The Vane Patriarch, Aldric is dragged into a game of thrones where Queen Maren sits on a cracking crown and the imprisoned Sister Olenya may be the only soul who remembers the truth of the Thornbound Kings. Across rain-bleached cities, bone-white cathedrals, and the thorn-choked heart of the Briarwood itself, Aldric must choose between reclaiming the birthright the Vane family buried in blood and destroying it before the darkness it unseals consumes everyone he loves. Magic is not a gift. It is a debt. And the realm is about to come collecting.