In a city where violence is currency, sometimes the most dangerous choice is to care.
Syra doesn't ask for much. A locked door, a clean blade, and no one looking too closely at her past.
A former pit fighter, she's built her life on discipline and distance. In New Merserat—a port city of trading houses, salt-bleached docks, and alleys the oil lamps don't reach—she survives by keeping her head down and her hands ready. The streets call her the Greykiss; she'd rather they didn't call her anything at all. When a charge of excessive force lands her ten days of public service, it should be simple. Predictable. Forgettable.
Then she meets Lienne.
Warm, bookish, and seemingly ordinary, the librarian volunteers at charity distributions and reads knight memoirs on canal benches. She's everything Syra isn't. But something about her draws attention—the wrong kind. When Syra's former patron resurfaces with pointed questions about Lienne, and shadows from the north begin to circle, the danger isn't only what's hunting them. Lienne sees the woman behind the monster—and doesn't flinch.
As rumors spread from the Salt Field—wolves that howl wrong, salt that hums beneath the skin, a curse no merchant will name—old debts come due, and the carefully maintained walls around Syra begin to crack. Not from violence, but from something she's far less equipped to handle: a reason to keep going.
Embers in the Salt is a slow-burn, gritty fantasy of fierce loyalty, hard-edged action, and gathering storms—a story about two people learning to trust each other in a world that punishes exactly that.
Embers in the Salt is the first book in the New Merserat series.
"Polished, intuitive fantasy debut driven by unforgettable characters. "
- Booklife Review (Editor's Pick)
