The Ashen Prophecy

The Kingdom of Regulus has enjoyed a hard-won peace, secured by its honourable general Magnus and his wife, the knight commander Kera. That calm shatters when the king is nearly assassinated during a diplomatic meeting with the distant Republic of Lyrium, and the blame falls on a persecuted community of magic users. Recruited alongside a band of mercenaries, Magnus and Kera cross the sea to help the Lyrians track down the supposed culprits, only to find a far more tangled truth. In Lyrium, the discovery of terracite, rare crystals that generate magic, has upended society, displacing the mages who once held power and fuelling a campaign of state persecution that drives some families to flight and others to rebellion. As the republic pushes its borders into the lands of the so-called Ashen in search of more terracite, Magnus and Kera are pulled into the overlapping struggles of mages and barbarians while carrying private wounds of their own. Their path leads through conspiracy and buried history toward the origins of terracite and an ancient prophecy that threatens to wake a vengeful power. Epic in scope, the novel weaves political intrigue, a hard-edged magic system, and the looming spectre of magical war.