Beauties and the Destroyer: Book I — The Black Iron Blade

The world feared his sword. It should have feared the man. In the ancient world of Aelthara, magic rules everything. It lights the towers of great cities, lifts sky-barges above royal castles, powers rune-forged engines, shields noble houses, heals the wealthy, arms the mighty, and binds the old races to their fading glory. To most, magic is civilization itself. To the Argent Inquisition, magic is corruption. Raised from childhood as their hidden weapon, Vaeric Ashbane has been trained to hunt witches, sorcerers, monsters, and all things deemed unnatural. The world knows him as the Black Inquisitor, the grim young killer whose plain black sword can cut through spells. But the legend is a lie. The sword has no power. Vaeric does. Born with the ability to see magic, nullify it, and destroy the hidden patterns that hold spells together, Vaeric is the very thing his masters claim to despise: an impossible being hidden behind a false holy blade. For years, he has obeyed, hunted, and killed in the name of purity. Until he is sent to Hollowmere. There, in a marsh village drowning beneath fear and old secrets, Vaeric is ordered to condemn Elowen Briarthorn, a witch-blooded healer accused of corruption. She is defiant, beautiful, sharp-tongued, and dangerously alive — everything Vaeric was taught to distrust. Yet the closer he comes to her, the more the truth unravels. Elowen is not the monster haunting Hollowmere. She is the only one holding it back. When the Inquisition chooses doctrine over truth, Vaeric must decide what he truly is: their obedient blade, or the man strong enough to break the chains they forged around him. Hunted by his former masters, drawn to the woman he was sent to kill, and pursued by rumors that twist him into something darker with every road he walks, Vaeric begins a journey across a world of haunted forests, magitech cities, ancient ruins, monstrous gods, seductive powers, and forbidden desire. Magic made Aelthara beautiful. Magic made it powerful. Magic also left a wound beneath the world. And Vaeric Ashbane may be the only one who can destroy it.