cherrybat
What if the world wasn't what you thought? What if the fairytales you whispered as a child held the keys to your survival?
In a kingdom where the sky is choked with soot and the soil is barren, magic is no longer a gift-it is a commodity. Under the iron rule of a Tyrant King, every drop of ancient power has been drained from the land, leaving the people of the Mire to battle a hunger that never ends.
Twenty-year-old Elara Fairchild has spent her life playing the role of the mundane human. At the University, she keeps her head down - well, depending on her mood - and swallowing the crown's propaganda as easily as the ash in the air. But Elara has a secret: the shadows she's always used for cover have started to whisper back.
Enters Haddon.
A beautiful, brooding stranger with a cocky streak as dangerous as his blade, Haddon enters her life like a storm. With emerald eyes that hold the forbidden secrets of the "Old Days," he saves Elara not once, but twice, dragging her from the safety of her lies and into a reality where Elves hid in a secret pocket of the world, jumpstarting the beginning of Elara's life, and the end.
As the silver amulet hidden beneath her clothes begins to hum with a forbidden resonance, Elara realizes she is carrying a power that could reignite the world-or lead her straight to the Gallows.
In this journey of ash and starlight, Elara will find an unexpected love that defies the King's law. But the price of the truth is high: to find out who she truly is, the life she once knew must be burned to the ground.
"The King sits on a throne of shadows and cold iron, believing he has locked the doors to the light. He thinks he has won because magic is gone, but he has forgotten that fire starts with a single, fragile spark."
The shadows are talking. The amulet is waking. And the girl from the Mire is about to turn the crown to ash.