The Dawn of the Cursed Queen

The book opens with a wry, grief-soaked recap from a member of Samkiel's disbanded Hand.

The book opens with a wry, grief-soaked recap from a member of Samkiel's disbanded Hand. They recount how their God King vanished for centuries after Rashearim fell, returned with a terrifyingly beautiful Ig'Morruthen girlfriend named Dianna, and promptly lost everything. Vincent—their trusted brother—betrayed them all for Nismera, the Goddess of War. Kaden's long game revealed hidden children of Unir, the dead God King. Now Samkiel's power bleeds across the sky, Nismera rules all twelve realms, and The Hand walks as mindless soldiers under enemy command. But the narrator clings to one hope: Dianna is still out there, and when she comes for blood, the narrator hopes to go down burning at her side—preferably next to Xavier, the man they've always loved.

A goddess reigns while the dead king hides among healers

After the fall of Rashearim, Nismera rules all twelve realms from a gleaming palace, wearing conquest like jewelry. Vincent, the celestial who betrayed The Hand, serves as her High Guard—sleeping with her out of duty, guarding the captive witch Camilla, and drowning in guilt. Meanwhile, Samkiel and Dianna hide under false names in Jade City, a floating metropolis of healers. He is still grievously wounded from the spear that killed him, purple veins of poison spreading from a scar across his abdomen. Dianna keeps devastating secrets from him: she resurrected him from actual death, their amata mark vanished as cosmic payment, and she can no longer stomach anything except blood. The fate Roccurem—Reggie, as Dianna calls him—urges her to confess. She refuses, terrified that telling him will make him disappear.

One stab to erase Samkiel from Dianna's mind forever

Kaden, Samkiel's Ig'Morruthen brother and Dianna's former maker, returns to Nismera's palace alongside his brother Isaiah. While Nismera executes hundreds of rebels, Kaden's private obsession consumes him: reclaiming Dianna. He reveals a crystal dagger forged by Azrael, Dianna's dead father, inscribed with runes that can erase a victim's memories and replace them with manufactured love. His plan is surgical—find Dianna, stab her, and make her forget Samkiel ever existed. Nismera agrees, seeing both a weapon reclaimed and rebel hope extinguished. Separately, Kaden forces Cameron, the newest Ig'Morruthen still racked by uncontrollable blood-hunger, to track Dianna across the realms. His leverage: the location of Xavier, the man Cameron loves. The hunt for Dianna begins on two fronts.

The healers were never healing—they were slowly killing him Queen Frilla of Jade City drops her mask at a private dinner. For weeks, she has been slipping a rare poison into Samkiel's food, drinks, and bathwater—doses so small not even Dianna's heightened senses detected it. The toxin attacks blood…