Ashkar's Flame

Two siblings. Two paths through the same war. One truth powerful enough to destroy everything they believe.

Kaelen Dros has spent his life in the shadow of a fallen father and an accomplished older sister. When he takes Ashkar's sacred Brand and joins the Dominion's soldiers, he finally finds the purpose he has always wanted: defending his people from the servants of Veyra, the god of shadow and deception.

Serenya serves the same cause from the furnaces of the capital. A gifted engineer and researcher, she creates devices meant to protect soldiers like her brother. But captured Veyran designs begin revealing principles her faith insists should be impossible-and the Temple's growing interest in her work feels less like approval than possession.

As Kaelen discovers that war bears little resemblance to the glorious stories he was raised on, Serenya uncovers records someone has worked very hard to bury. Their letters grow more cautious. Their questions become more dangerous. And beneath every sermon, battlefield victory, and sacred flame, the same unsettling possibility begins to emerge:

The war may not be what either side has been told.

Caught between family, duty, and faith, Kaelen and Serenya must decide how much truth they are willing to face-and what they are prepared to lose when those in power realize they have begun asking the wrong questions.

Ashkar's Flame is the first book in the Aurelion Trilogy, an adult epic fantasy of forbidden magic, institutional power, divided loyalties, and the bond between a brother and sister struggling to find one another across a war built on inherited lies.