The King of Chains (A Work of Kings Duology Book 1)

Twenty-three years after the war that made him, King-Protector Oblan of Tal still rules the way he conquered: through fear, fire, and the iron collar. Half his kingdom is in chains. The rest is afraid to ask why.

Told across five first-person voices, The King of Chains follows the people standing closest to that throne, and the ones deciding, each in their own way, that they can’t stand there any longer. A border lord known as the last honest man in Tal, offered a power he doesn’t understand by a stranger who wants nothing but to settle a score. The oldest son, who isn’t certain the legacy he inherits is the legacy he wants. The second son, a prince desperate to prove he’s more than his father’s second favorite, learning exactly how far he’s willing to go to earn a crown that was never meant to be his. A warrior born into violence who has started asking whether the throne she’s fighting for is one worth having. A young bride raised in a court built on bones, discovering that the family she was born into and the family she chooses don’t have to be the same thing. A healer who has spent years being patient, and has run out of patience at last.

None of them are certain they’re doing the right thing. All of them have decided it no longer matters.

This is the world of the Ashfyre Quintet, a generation later: the peace grown old, the old wounds unhealed, and a kingdom about to find out what happens when the people it was built on stop agreeing to hold it up. The crown doesn’t fall in a single battle. It falls one betrayal, one choice, one broken chain at a time.