The Borrowed Throne

Corvan has worn a hundred faces and owned none of them. Nyxor, the copying magic that lets him slip into another man's skin, is the only thing that's kept him fed in a village dying under a moon that bleeds red. It's unstable, costly, and never quite free, but it's gotten him through worse nights than most. Tonight should have been simple. Slip into a noble's empty estate, take what isn't nailed down, slip out again. Instead he finds a corridor soaked in blood, his own borrowed face staring up at him from a severed head on the floor, and a man who was waiting for him by name. The job was never the job. It was bait, and Corvan's oldest friend sold him the hook. Now a dying prince needs a face that isn't his own a little longer, and Lord Valerius has decided Corvan's will do. Whether Corvan agrees is, apparently, optional. A con man. A stolen throne. And a magic about to cost him everything he has left, including his name.