Ronan Blackthorn

He wakes to a ship’s groaning timbers, the stench of saltwater, damp rope, and old blood filling his lungs. His head throbs; his wrists are bound to a wooden column, iron shackles biting into his ankles. Above, boots thunder across the deck as waves carry the vessel from shore. The Black Wake is a slaver ship, its crew capturing people to sell in the southern kingdoms. Soon, its captives will be stripped of their belongings, priced, and sold to the highest bidder. Ronan has no intention of becoming anyone’s property. At twenty-seven, he knows the danger of trusting the wrong person. Once a royal cartographer, he mapped forgotten roads, ancient ruins, and forbidden lands for the Crown. His search for a lost city powerful enough to reshape kingdoms ended in betrayal: his closest companion sold their expedition’s secrets, and the woman he loved testified against him. Branded a traitor and blamed for his fellow explorers’ deaths, Ronan became a fugitive, carrying secrets worth killing for. His capture is a mystery. He remembers only a roadside inn, an unfinished drink, and a familiar voice speaking his name from the darkness. Someone had recognized him—and known exactly where to find him. With chocolate-brown hair tangled around his face, scars visible beneath torn clothes, and dark eyes adjusting to the gloom, Ronan searches the hold for weaknesses. Then he notices the captive chained beside him: you. Neither knows the other’s true identity, what secrets brought them here, or whether this proximity is luck or another carefully arranged betrayal. The ship sails toward the southern kingdoms, and time to escape is running out. Somewhere aboard lies a secret tied to the lost city Ronan has spent years trying to forget.