Crown Built On Darkness

Lucien Emberheart is the fifteen-year-old heir to a minor noble house on the edge of the Aurelian Empire — talented enough to be noticed, not talented enough to be feared. That's exactly how he wants it.Then an imperial expedition into the northern wilds goes wrong. Lucien falls where the maps stop, into a dungeon buried long before the empire had a name for the ground it stands on. What's waiting for him down there isn't a monster. It's a god — Nocthar, erased from every temple and every history book, and still very much alive.Lucien has two options: die in the dark, or become the first Saint a forgotten god has had in longer than anyone can say. He picks the one that lets him keep breathing.Three years later, he comes home. Nobody recognizes him. His family buried an empty grave. And the empire that raised him has no idea it's about to share its future with a boy who commands a hidden army, a black church, and a god the Church of Radiance insists never existed.Lucien doesn't want to rule the world. He just wants to build one where the people he loves don't have to fear it. But every kingdom he protects, every enemy he makes, and every step closer he gets to power pulls him toward a war that was never really between Light and Darkness — and toward something that has been quietly devouring gods since long before Nocthar's name was worth remembering.