She can hear the dragon dying under the fortress. The court that's killing him just married her into it.
Sela Ardith sings the dying out of this world for a living. She is the best keener in the iron valleys, and she hates that she is the best, and she has spent her whole life pretending she cannot hear the other thing: the vast, cracked, dying note under the eastern mountain that no one else will admit is there.Then Lord Thassil of the Irongate Court summons her by name, and the summons is not a request. Marry the Ironhand, seal a restless valley, and her sister walks free of the iron-debt that has swallowed their family. One vow. That is all it costs.
Vaelor Threin has been the sword of the Irongate Court for two hundred years. Cold, exact, obedient, he was made into a weapon at nineteen and has never once been asked what he wanted. He is ordered to marry the keener and make it convincing. Neither of them chose the vow. Both of them have been someone's instrument their whole lives.
What the court does not say out loud: the marriage is not a marriage. It is a machine. The dragon chained beneath the fortress is dying, drained by three centuries of a bond that only ever took, and the vow Sela was forced to swear is meant to spend her rare, old blood to buy the lie another hundred years, and to end her doing it.
To break a vow built to drain them both, Sela and Vaelor will have to stop being what they were made to be, choose each other against everything the court wants, and finish what only a dragon and a mortal, freely, can begin, before the second vow comes due.
Perfect for readers who love dragon-rider romantasy, forced-marriage fae courts, and a morally grey love interest with a banked-fire heart.
- 🐉 Forced marriage / marriage of convenience, slow burn to open-door spice
🔥 A made-weapon fae war-marshal who was never once asked what he wanted
🔔 A mourning-singer who can hear the truth no one else will admit
⚔️ A dying-dragon secret, a rotten court, and a bond built on buried lies
👑 Book Two of The Ashen Courts — reads as a standalone
Full-length romantasy (58,000+ words). Standalone forced-marriage love story with a satisfying HFN and a saga-sized horizon. Intended for readers 18+.
Genre: Fantasy
Used availability for Sasha Leone's Ironvow