In a world where power is everything, Wren has none.
Among the Sideri—a magical people defined by the ember they carry within—Wren is an aberration. No ember manifested when she came of age. No power. No place.
She has spent her life confined within the Citadel, catalogued as defective and watched by monks who know far more about her fate than they will say. Wren believed the Citadel’s children were chosen—their births beneath a celestial alignment sacred, their years of preparation a gift, and their futures already written in starlight.
Then a stranger appears in the catacombs.
Armed, lethal, and hunted, Griffon is the queen’s former assassin and one of the most feared men in the kingdom. He does not offer Wren rescue. He offers her one brutal truth: the Citadel has not been preparing her for a glorious future. It has been preparing her for an early death.
So Wren runs.
Her escape carries her across a continent she has never seen, into impossible cities and dangerous courts where every discovery dismantles another piece of the life she thought she understood. The more Wren learns about the world beyond the Citadel, the more she suspects that she may be nothing like what she was told.
Griffon did not agree to protect her. He did not agree to stay. Yet he keeps doing both.
He is guarded, dangerous, and accustomed to solving problems with a blade. She is curious, relentless, and far more likely to solve an ancient puzzle than wait to be rescued. The feelings growing between them are inconvenient, irrational, and profoundly ill-timed—especially while someone is still trying to separate Griffon’s head from his shoulders.
Wren has spent her entire life being told she is broken.
She is beginning to wonder whether the world simply does not have a name for what she is yet.
The Stargazer is a slow-burn new adult romantic fantasy featuring intricate magic, forbidden knowledge, sharp banter, deadly secrets, ancient puzzles, and romantic tension stretched to its breaking point. It is the first book in the Embers of Distant Suns series.
