The Empress

A tarot card lying in the snow pulls a young woman out of her own world and into Towerfall, a harsh and cruel realm. The Arcana, the figures of the tarot deck, are real here, and the first people she meets try to kill her. She narrates her own story in the first person.

Kane saves her. He takes her to his hideout in the woods and nurses her back to health. He is a battle-scarred warrior with a dark past, and she has already watched him kill two people to protect her. She doesn't know whether she can trust him, and she is sure he is hiding secrets.

Her one chance of reaching the palace, and so of getting home, is to convince the Kingdom of Pentacles that she and Kane are married. They are not. If anyone discovers the lie, both of them will die. Something is also deeply wrong with Towerfall itself, and that unease sits under every scene.

The Empress opens a tarot-inspired fantasy series set in Towerfall. It is a fake marriage romance with a morally gray love interest and an open-door, high-heat level. Expect a dark, brooding hero, a dangerous world and a slow tension between attraction and suspicion.