Before the kingdom broke, someone built the flaw on purpose.
In "The Bone-Reader's Lantern," a woman condemned to die at dawn spends her last night teaching a shrine-guard what the bones beneath the furnace have been trying to say for a hundred years — and the only way to make him carry it is to touch him through the bars.
In "The First Vow," two lovers shape the first piece of emberglass on a volcanic ridge and argue over whether to make their founding oath unbreakable — or to hide a fracture inside it for strangers they'll never meet.
In "The Keeper of Names," a man who has carried a dead woman's truth for years meets a records-keeper cataloging the ruins — and discovers that writing a name down is the most dangerous act of love left in a kingdom built on silence.
Dark romantasy. Glass magic. The origins of everything that shattered.
Ashes Before Ashenmere is the second collection from the world of The Glass Vow.
Sael Thornbury writes dark romantasy where vows have teeth and love draws blood. The Ashenmere series is set in a volcanic island kingdom where law is spoken into glass, promises are binding magic, and the women sent to marry the god beneath the mountain were never willing. Expect enemies who earn every inch of the turn, magic that costs what it gives, and stories that refuse to let anyone off easy. The Ashenmere series is the first. More is coming...View all by Sael Thornbury
