MEET NYSSKA STONEGATE.
Refugee. Huntress. Enforcer. Detective.
For the last five hundred years an isolated island nation has been home to the reclusive SETHYDS. Tall. Graceful. Beautiful. Pansexual. Possessed of an unholy, terrifying strength.
The humans loathe them. Fear them. Call them "demons."
But now a natural disaster has forced the sethyds from their home, compelling them to seek refuge on Imperial land.
Though faced with the humans' unending hatred and prejudice, Nysska Stonegate is given no choice but to become the first sethyd member of the Imperial Criminal Investigation Ministry. A reluctant ambassador for her people -- and an even more reluctant detective.
BOOK ONE: THE RUNEMASTER HOMICIDE
Political exile NYSSKA STONEGATE and her disabled mother SIMANA have made peace with their banishment from sethyd society, carving out a home for themselves in the human wilderness.
But a chance encounter with a young human politician leads Nysska down an unexpected path—and to her joining the Imperial Criminal Investigation Ministry, known as the THAUMETALLICON, in the role of Enforcer.
The Valconian Empire has always relied on the use of ARGONIUM RUNES to maintain its power. But when something renders those runes all but useless, Nysska finds herself stepping into a role she could not have foreseen: that of detective. Introducing criminal procedures and techniques that have been lost to the humans.
Can Nysska solve the murder at the heart of what proves to be a far-reaching conspiracy? Or will the Empire topple, dooming humans and sethyds alike?
BOOK TWO: THE BLACK-HORNED GRAVE
Enforcer Nysska Stonegate—the first-ever non-human member of the Imperial Criminal Investigation Ministry—thought she might have won at least a measure of acceptance when she solved the murder of the Empire’s foremost Runemaster. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Now Emperor Valco himself has Nysska and the rest of the Ninth Crucible in his sights. He’s set the investigative team a near-impossible task: find the perpetrator responsible for the grisliest, most unimaginable mass murder in the Empire’s history…or suffer the consequences.
Secret after secret is revealed as Nysska pulls back the crime’s raw skin—exposing old atrocities, vast conspiracies, and ultimate truths that shake her understanding of the world itself. Nysska’s life will never be the same as she faces the monsters behind THE BLACK-HORNED GRAVE.
BOOK THREE: THE RUNEBEARER CURSE
NYSSKA STONEGATE is faced with an impossible task: secure safety for members of the most hated and feared group of people in the Valconian Empire.
To do so she must cross a continent...avert a war that would cost millions upon millions of lives...and uncover a secret that could change the Empire forever.
The fate of civilization as she and her fellow Crucible members know it hangs in the balance as Nysska learns the horrifying truth behind The Runebearer Curse.
THIS BOOK WILL BE PUBLISHED IN SEPTEMBER 2024. THE PREVIEW CHAPTER LINKED BELOW HAS NOT BEEN THROUGH FINAL EDITS, AND MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE FINISHED WORK.
