The Hollow Crown of Ashenmoor
Kael Veyrin has been walking since dawn through the corpse-tilled fields of Greymire Hollow, following a dying boy whose whispered pleas pulled him off the road and into the cursed heart of Ashenmoor. What begins as an act of mercy quickly becomes a descent into a kingdom of the dead, where the Hollow Court of spectral nobles rule from the shadows of their ruined fortress, and the marshland whispers with the voices of the forgotten. To save the boy and free the spirit of his lost sister Ilyana from the witch's grasp, Kael must bargain with the Witch of Dunhaven, a figure of terrible power who has haunted the moors for generations. But the witch is not the only threat stalking the fog. The hound-shades of the Hollow Court hunt any who trespass on their sovereign soil, while thread-wraiths slip between the cracks of the living world, unraveling those who stray too long. In the marshland village of Vaelmorr, Kael finds unlikely allies: Dame Virellai, a knight whose honor has survived the apocalypse, and Edron Vase, a scholar whose forbidden research may hold the key to breaking the crown's curse. Together they must confront Duke Orven Kessell, whose ambition damned this kingdom long ago, and his ruthless daughter Mab, who will do anything to claim her father's dark inheritance. As mirror reflections of Soren begin to fracture and Commander Thessa Brand marshals the Argent Hand militia against the rising darkness, Kael faces an impossible choice: surrender the hollow crown and damn the souls it binds, or wear it himself and become the next monarch of a kingdom of ghosts.