Spiced Broth and Slaughter

Sprinting across the amber-tiled rooftops of Jūrapolis to evade heavily armed inquisitors, Vakarė plummets into a lightless alley and lands squarely on the blind, bleeding assassin she was trying to avoid. In the grimdark novel The Cinder Prophecy, Vakarė is the Fake Saintess destined to betray Ignas, pushing the discarded killer into becoming a world-ending calamity. Her solution to surviving? Shamelessly bulldoze past his lethal defenses by aggressively stuffing him with piping-hot bowls of saffron stew. Told in alternating third-person perspectives, the story follows Vakarė acting like a cheeky, relentless ray of sunshine to Ignas, while coldly and systematically orchestrating the bloody downfall of both the Chantry and his former guild. Ignas, bewildered by the lavish meals, soon devolves into a fiercely loyal, strictly platonic shadow who grows terrifyingly jealous whenever anyone else receives her smiles. But their sanctuary is threatened by a devastating identity swap: Ignas is the true holy heir, and Vakarė is the shadow-born heretic. Can she butcher their enemies before the solstice, or will the Chantry burn them both?