The Hollow Crown of Avenmoor
Prince Ravik Valcaryn was raised to inherit a kingdom, but the kingdom he finds is already dying. In the salt-and-ash tunnels of Pit Twelve along the Greycoast, miners cough black and collapse before their shifts end, and High Speaker Oram Greylen commands silence in the name of stability. Sent to investigate what the court refuses to see, Ravik discovers that the sickness is not plague but consecration, a slow ritual feeding something old, something patient, something that wears a familiar face. Each step deeper into the mines pulls him closer to the truth his father King Talvyn Valcaryn carried to the grave: the Valcaryn line was never meant to rule. It was meant to be consumed. As the Priestess Edarra circles the throne and the outcast healer Maelis Dunreve reveals what she saw the night the old king died, Ravik is forced to choose between the crown that has already killed his house and the shadow his sister Cira Valcaryn will not let him name. Voss Arren hunts the seams for bodies that will not stay buried, Mira Halloway tends the dying with prayers that no longer answer, and Yselle Brenn keeps ledgers that could end a dynasty. With allies he cannot trust and a saint wearing his own blood, Ravik must decide whether to break the cycle or become the next name on the altar. In Avenmoor, the throne is not taken. It is offered, and the offering always burns.