“She shoved the power deep inside of her and smothered the embers that glowed in the depths of her soul where all the worthwhile things about her had been smothered as well.”
A continent divided. Rival kingdoms on the brink of war. Fates intertwined. A love that will spark the flame of rebellion.
Maude has been running for most of her adult life; from her past and her future.
She is an isolated pit fighter who would rather hit first and ask questions later with no other goal than to stay alive in the slums of Logi, the capital city of the Kingdom of Flame. Life had been anything but simple for Maude but it was still hers. But when a charming stranger hops into the fighting pit with her and forces her to face the growing unrest in Logi, Maude can feel the fates swirling around her once more.
Herrick is a warrior from the Kingdom of Rivers who is on a mission to help the oppressed, low born citizens of Ahland.
A strict believer in the fate that the gods laid out for him, Herrick follows his gut to Logi when dreams of Valkyries and flames plague him. He knows the brutally stubborn woman he finds in the illegal fighting pits is his fate when he aggravates her enough for her to lose her slippery grip on control, revealing her secret. She would be his salvation in this civil war against King Helvig of Logi... and his damnation.
When the opportunity arrives for Herrick to persuade Maude to help him search for a rumored weapon that can take down the crooked king on the Throne of Wind and Flames, he quickly discovers that she is as frustrating as she is alluring to the warrior. Her past is a mystery that Herrick wants to unravel but Maude doesn’t give up bits of herself without a fight, even if she feels herself losing that fight every moment she spends in the aggravating warrior’s presence.
Tempers flare and desires burn in this enemies to lovers Viking inspired fantasy imbued with elemental magic and civil unrest. Follow Maude and Herrick as they reluctantly work together to free Ahland from crooked rulers and restrictions that have the gods restless enough to begin pulling on the strings of fate, altering their lives as they know it.
Secrets are uncovered. Gods interfere with the fates. A vicious darkness slithers out of the shadows. The drums of war start to shake the land of Ahland.
Sent running north, Maude and her friends try to regroup alongside new allies after their failed assassination attempts in Logi. In their defeat, their enemy—King Harald Helvig of the Kingdom of Flame—gained the power he needed to rule over all Ahland leaving them more hopeless than ever. Unsure of their next steps, they linger in the sanctuary that has been provided for them until distressing news reaches them. Throwing caution to the wind, Maude takes what she’s discovered about herself and uses it to free the only man she’s ever loved from imprisonment.
Herrick has nothing to do but spend his dark days agonizing over his failures—as a brother, as a General, and as a friend. The spark that has entered his life in the form of a fiery, short-tempered woman has changed not only the way he sees the world, but how he responds to it. She has awakened something that has lived in him for years but was never allowed to see the light of day. After living through what he has faced in the wake of his failures and the chains that still bind him, it might just be enough to let that darkness out.
Still reeling from the catastrophic mistakes made and friends lost, there is little hope left in all of them… until their collective fates bring them head to head with the ugly truth behind that greater power that is supposed to guide them in life.
In the highly anticipated sequel to Kingdom of Embers and Ruin, follow Maude and Herrick as they discover there was always more to their entwined fates than just their undeniable attraction. Will it strengthen them or fray the threads of their lives until both are unrecognizable?