Bonds Beyond Blood

Some bonds are forged in blood. Hers was forged in fire.

A gift like Amari Stalva’s should make her sacred. Instead, it makes her useful and dangerous.

Despite being the sole daughter of the Stalva line, Amari has survived by becoming easy to underestimate: a delicate noblewoman, a low-ranking healer, a calm smile with no reason for anyone to look closer. Few know she exists. Even fewer know what she can do.

Then comes Solaris, a military squad made of disgraced nobles, traumatized heirs, and discarded outcasts. Their mission should be simple: hunt the trafficking ring that has kidnapped thousands of women and children over the course of a decade. But the deeper they dig, the clearer it becomes that the missing were never taken at random, and someone powerful has made sure the truth stays buried.

Every answer costs blood. And Amari sees the squad’s potential long before they do, along with the violence it will take to help them grow.

But Amari carries another secret through it all: the Ashen King. One glance has chained her to the most dangerous man alive, a boy-king turned godfire through a bond believed extinct for centuries. The more Amari resists him, the more the bond rages, and the more his patience begins to fray.

As Solaris closes in on the truth, the traffickers fight back, bodies pile in their wake, and the bond Amari tried to outrun begins dragging her back to where the fire started.

A lush, brutal adult dark fantasy of political rot, found family, captivity, and a bond that is less a love story than a siege. For readers of Sarah J. Maas, Carissa Broadbent, and Scarlett St. Clair.