For two thousand turns, the Courts of Light and Shadow have warred. The cruelest part, neither is wrong. The Ashen King executed his own queen to prove mercy a weakness, forcing his son Vallen, Prince of Shadows, to witness it. That same nyght, Vallen and Nymeria founded the Crimson Crow, a rebel network for the people both courts leave to die.
A village is slaughtered by Glyphs. The report says no survivors. Nymeria finds the lie. Both kings are already hunting the impossible.
Vallen reaches her first. Violet eyes no human should have, untaught magic, a bond with a dragon thought extinct.
She is seven.
He hides her for three turns. Trains her to fight and survive. Somewhere along the way, she becomes the most dangerous thing that has ever happened to him.
The Ashen King has found a new weakness to prove.
A character-driven dark fantasy about a boy raised as a weapon, and the people who make him something else. For readers who like their fantasy political, their heroes compromised, and their found family hard-won.
For readers of Robin Hobb, John Gwynne, and Mark Lawrence.
Series: Book 1 of The Krev Chronicles, the prequel trilogy to The Circle of Seven Saga. New to Terros? Start here.
POV: Single POV (Vallen), third-person present tense
Content notes: on-page execution of a parent, child in peril, violence