The Blood Heir by Ariana Valewood (The Ashen Throne Book Two)

The throne remembered her blood.

Now the whole realm wants to decide what it means.

Aurelia Serrane has escaped Ashmere’s palace, but freedom does not loosen the kingdom’s grip. The Mirror Council is hunting her. The border realms are watching. And the broken shard she carries is waking old laws the throne was never meant to forget.

She is no longer only a claimant.

She is the blood heir.

Tavian Morcant chose her once in front of the court that raised him to obey. Now that choice may cost him everything. His memories are breaking open, his loyalty is being tested, and the woman he was ordered to control has become the one truth he cannot surrender.

But Lady Vaelora Senn is not finished.

She knows the power of one clean lie. She knows how to turn fear into law, law into a cage, and a crown into a weapon. If Aurelia returns, she may be crowned under terms that make her a prisoner. If she refuses, every death that follows may be written in her name.

To save Ashmere, Aurelia must do more than claim the throne.

She must expose the lie beneath it.

And Tavian must decide whether love is worth breaking the last pieces of the man the Council made him become.

The Blood Heir is Book Two in The Ashen Throne, a dark royal romantasy duet filled with forbidden magic, mirror prophecy, court betrayal, morally grey devotion, enemy prince tension, cursed thrones and a powerful heroine who refuses to be owned by her crown.