The Queen He Was Ordered to Kill

**The Conclave has convened. The old law demands a body. Ronan was given the order — and the order was Briar.**

A year into her marriage to the Ashen King, Briar Ashwood has learned to read Vaelor's court the way a sailor reads weather — and the storm gathering around her now is the worst she's faced since the day she said her vows.

Lord Camwell has found an ancient law and an old grievance, and woven them into an accusation Ronan cannot simply overrule: that the power flaring gold and unexplained in his wife's blood answers to no crown, and no law, but a covenant older than either of them understands. Convene the Conclave. Prove the power bound — or watch the throne order done what it once nearly cost Ronan everything to spare.

Briar has survived worse than nine skeptical lords. She has survived six years of grief, a poisoning, an assassin's blade, and a husband who once ordered her family's destruction before he ever imagined he'd spend his whole reign trying to protect her instead. But surviving Camwell's petition means trusting Ronan with every secret she's spent a lifetime learning to keep close — and trusting herself with a power neither of them fully understands, before a court that has already decided what it wants that power to cost her.

And somewhere beyond the palace walls, Aldric Thorne isn't finished. He built this crisis with his own patient hands, and he's watching to see whether the throne he once nearly destroyed will finally fall — or whether the queen he was ordered to kill has become something considerably harder to end.

*The Queen He Was Ordered to Kill* is Book Two of **The Ashbind Vow**, continuing Briar and Ronan's story with a season of court intrigue, an old enemy's last and most dangerous move, and a love neither of them will let an ancient law take from them — for readers who love political fantasy romance, second-chance trust, a hero who chooses his wife over his crown, and a heroine who has never once needed saving, only believing.