Dawn of the North

Silla is the long-lost Volsik heir, and she has set out to win over the northern jarls of Íseldur. Her aim is to pull King Ivar Ironheart off his throne. The task is harder because a shard of a god sits in her mind, bending her thoughts and actions toward its own purposes.

Her sister, Saga Volsik, is a captive on Zagadka, an isolated isle. Saga has to choose between serving Ivar's cause and risking everything to protect the innocent people caught between the warring sides.

The book alternates between the two sisters, so the reader follows the political campaign in the north and the pressure on Saga's island prison side by side. A poisonous mist creeps across the realm while they work, and both women have to master magic they do not fully understand.

This is a Viking-inspired romantasy and a continuation of the Ashen series by Demi Winters. It widens the war and the god-touched threat set up earlier in the series, so it suits readers who have already begun the sequence. The stakes are a throne, a divided family and a land under a spreading poison, and the mood leans toward war and dread.