Shadows Because of Ashes
(2026)(A book in the Sephlem series)
A collection of stories by Felisha Antonette
Her blood carries a curse. Her sister carries its betrayal.
Together they will unearth a legacy their family tried to erase. But what they discover could make them the very monsters they fear.
‘If fire erases what lives, shadows remember what was lost.’
Neligh Newcomb has always known being Burdened Sephlem meant disguises and limits. An accidental shove or the wrong scent of sweat in the hallway could stir the curse inside her. So she hides it by folding herself into corridors, laughing when her friends laugh, and treating her father’s bedtime stories like lies she was meant to forget.
Those stories were never harmless. They lingered like smoke, curling through the cracks of her life, waiting for the moment they could no longer be contained. The night her world splits open, these tales take shape in flesh, power, and vengeance. Her twin emerges, merciless and plotting, raised under the eye of a predatory king with every reason to see them both broken.
Neither sister knows the true extent of their legacy, erased by silence and buried in lies. To survive, they must uncover the cost of their parents’ choices and the prophecy that binds their blood. Zursalem waits beyond the break, reaching further each day, and Neligh must decide whether she can endure not only the shadows hunting her, but the darker truth of what they are making her become.
Because in Zursalem, survival changes you.
And shadows do not vanish.
They rise—because of ashes.
The Sephlem Trials continues in this dark YA fantasy of found family, supernatural bonds, and the dangerous line between loyalty and survival.
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Together they will unearth a legacy their family tried to erase. But what they discover could make them the very monsters they fear.
‘If fire erases what lives, shadows remember what was lost.’
Neligh Newcomb has always known being Burdened Sephlem meant disguises and limits. An accidental shove or the wrong scent of sweat in the hallway could stir the curse inside her. So she hides it by folding herself into corridors, laughing when her friends laugh, and treating her father’s bedtime stories like lies she was meant to forget.
Those stories were never harmless. They lingered like smoke, curling through the cracks of her life, waiting for the moment they could no longer be contained. The night her world splits open, these tales take shape in flesh, power, and vengeance. Her twin emerges, merciless and plotting, raised under the eye of a predatory king with every reason to see them both broken.
Neither sister knows the true extent of their legacy, erased by silence and buried in lies. To survive, they must uncover the cost of their parents’ choices and the prophecy that binds their blood. Zursalem waits beyond the break, reaching further each day, and Neligh must decide whether she can endure not only the shadows hunting her, but the darker truth of what they are making her become.
Because in Zursalem, survival changes you.
And shadows do not vanish.
They rise—because of ashes.
The Sephlem Trials continues in this dark YA fantasy of found family, supernatural bonds, and the dangerous line between loyalty and survival.
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy