The Thornveil Covenant

Mira Ashcroft watches three months of work split along a seam she stitched herself, drifting to the marble floor of the High Cartography Bureau's Disciplinary Chamber. But the vellum that tore was never ordinary parchment, and the Veiled Marches she mapped were never meant to be found. When a wounded courier presses a dying letter into her hands, written by the deceased Elara Thornveil, Mira becomes the keeper of a covenant that powerful men have already killed to bury. Crimson Ledger enforcers hunt her through the salt district. Inquisitor Davrin Hask brands her a traitor to the realm. The half-tree Tomas Hale, twisted by old magics and older regrets, offers uneasy passage through the Ashfen raiders' territory. Caedmon Vrell demands she complete what Elara began, while Sable Renner and Sergeant Voss circle closer with truths Mira cannot afford to believe. As Crown Prince Aldric Vane the Younger rises to a throne soaked in his father's sins, Mira must choose: surrender the maps to the Thornveil Covenant's last living heir, or burn them and watch a kingdom fall. The vellum is already torn. What she writes next will decide who survives the bleeding.