Banners of Iron and Ash

The first refugee stumbles past Seraphine Voss’s window at dusk, and she doesn’t look up. She’s watched Threshfield burn for hours, a slow, smoldering pyre on the horizon, but the fire is no longer distant. The empire’s banners, iron and ash, are coming, and with them, the war she fled years ago. Now, as the village she abandoned collapses into ruin, Seraphine must confront the past she buried: the betrayals, the blood, and the name she left behind. But the empire doesn’t forget. And when its forces arrive, they bring more than torches and blades, they bring a reckoning. Seraphine’s exile is over. The question is whether she’ll fight for the world that cast her out or let it burn. The choice will cost her everything.