The Hook

Peace turns brittle in the northern kingdoms. The truth of old atrocities still festers, biding its time, as the High-King’s gaze shifts once more toward the free nations beyond his reach.

Elsie Marsh, a thief on the run, watches her world implode after a heist gone wrong. She flees with the High-King’s most dangerous weapon—an ancient power worth killing for and dying over.

Roy Yawburg, a war-scarred rhymer, long ago traded musket and sword for the strings of his guitar—but his hands still remember the price paid with the innocence of his youth. Now the vassal-kings have come calling again, demanding a service he swore he’d never again give.

Their paths will cross in blood and betrayal. Half-truths and broken loyalties will tip the scales of power—and at the center stand a thief and a rhymer, bound together by secrets that could herald the fall of an empire.