What the Fire Takes

In the kingdom of Vermia, witches burn.

Once, the groves thrived-ancient forests where magic whispered through the leaves, and those with witchblood lived quietly alongside the land. The monarchy tolerated them, so long as they stayed unseen. But tolerance is fragile, and fear burns quickly.

Now the groves are ash. Those marked by red in their eyes are hunted, tried, and executed before cheering crowds. The crusades swept through Vermia like wildfire, leaving only smoke, silence, and ghosts that refuse to rest.

This is a world where difference is death. Where power is taken, never given. Where a woman's life is political currency-and a witch's life is forfeit.

Two lives spiral toward an inferno.

Princess Genevieve has spent nineteen years as a gilded prisoner-adorned, admired, and unheard. When her father announces her sudden betrothal to a foreign prince she has never met, the walls of her life close in. Her future is decided. Her choice is irrelevant.

Sybil remembers only fragments of her past: her mother's final warning, green eyes watching as she fled, and a power inside her that will not stay silent. Haunted by voices and the man who has lingered in her nightmares since childhood, she returns to Vermia seeking answers-and revenge.

When a chance meeting in a hidden garden brings Genevieve and Sybil together, something impossible sparks. For the first time, they are seen-not as symbols, not as pawns, but as themselves. But in a kingdom that condemns both witches and forbidden love, connection is a dangerous rebellion.

As the wedding approaches and old magic stirs beneath the ashes, their fates collide. Salvation or ruin-freedom or fire.

What the Fire Takes is a lush, queer fantasy romance of forbidden love, inherited trauma, and ruthless ambition-about women written into other people's legacies, and the men who would burn the world to be remembered.