Eryssan has always feared what waits beyond the Fracture. Maia never expected to fall for it.
When Maia Colwyn arrives at the Archive of Eryssan as a new apprentice, she brings nothing but her father’s teachings and a fierce need to understand the wound in the world that has shadowed her people for generations.
What she doesn’t expect is to catch the attention of an Umbralyn: one of the shadow-born beings blamed for every disappearance, every death, every reason the city bars its doors at night.
Caelith is nothing the stories promised. Controlled. Unreadable. Three centuries old. And the harder he works to keep her at a distance, the more certain Maia becomes that he is protecting her from something, or from himself.
As the Fracture stirs and Eryssan’s fragile peace begins to crack, Maia is pulled into secrets the Archive was never meant to keep. A rebellion building in the shadows. A truth about the Umbralyn that could undo everything she was taught to believe.
But some vows outlast centuries.
Maia must decide how much of herself she will risk to save her city — and whether Caelith can choose her over the vengeance he has spent three centuries building.
A slow-burn gothic fantasy romance about forbidden love, rebellion, and the cost of understanding the thing you were raised to fear.