The Ash Beneath the Crown

Mara Venn has spent her life in the cinder vents beneath Kell Ashgate, small enough for lethal work and poor enough that no one asks whether she is afraid. When a royal inspection ends with missing miners, moving corpses, and a voice under the stone calling her by name, Mara discovers the kingdom's warmth is fed by the unnamed dead. Hunted by the crown and wanted by powers she does not understand, Mara flees into the Gloamfen with a disgraced knight, a goblin guide, and a secret that could burn cities awake. To save her city, Mara must do the one thing the powerful never expected from someone like her: make the invisible count.