The Hardest Thing a Queen Can Do

Ashes of the Moonspire does not open with a battle. It opens with a goodbye, and somehow that is worse.

Before the armies move, before the borders burn, there is a private courtyard behind the stables that has always belonged to just the two of them. Aria and Caelan meet there in the last sliver of shadow before the day's glare, and for a moment they are not queen and Guardian, not legend and instrument, just two people trying to survive a world with an appetite for tragedy. Where their hands meet, the bond flickers into light, silver from her, gold from him, the way it always has.

And then she lets go first, because she has to, because if she does not she never will. "Don't be a hero," she tells him. "Just be alive." He gives her the only thing he can. A promise to come back.

That is the emotional engine of book four of The Moonfire Legacy. I have always written devotion as something with weight and cost, and here the cost is rising. Readers of the series know I do not raise the stakes gently.

I am keeping the rest off the page, because the ache of this book is meant to be earned chapter by chapter. What I will say is that Ashes of the Moonspire is the biggest book in the series so far.

Early reviewers are already calling it "an excellent continuation to the series," and if you are new to Aria and Caelan, start where it all begins, with Crown of Moonfire: https://books2read.com/u/3Loxle. Search Ravan Tempest at your favorite store.