Ash and Feather. Songs of the Crowmother, #3

Ash and Feather is the third book in the epic Songs of the Crowmother series, a sweeping Celtic fantasy of prophecy, power, and the high cost of freedom. The Perfected are rising in the south, promising peace, prosperity, and lives free of pain. To a land worn thin by war, their promise is almost irresistible. But thirteen year old Aine sees what others cannot. Her sight reaches into the layers beneath the world, revealing the threads of influence that twist through every village the Perfected touch.
When Boudica of the Iceni falls in a calculated ambush, Aine becomes the first to witness the truth. The Perfected move with the precision of a single mind. Their joy is real, but it is joy shaped by an unseen will. Their freedom is an illusion. Their peace is a carefully crafted cage. As hunger deepens in the Confederation, more families drift toward Medb's growing empire. Even Aine's closest friend, Liam, begins to question whether the old ways are worth the struggle.
He sees hope. She sees the hollowing of the human spirit. Aine is marked by the Morrigan to see what others deny. But sight alone cannot stop a nation from choosing comfort over freedom. While Síle slips slowly toward corruption, while threads of influence tighten around Tara, and while old alliances fracture under the weight of temptation, Aine must decide how far she is willing to go to resist an enemy who conquers not through battle, but through desire.
Powerful, emotional, and rooted in deep Celtic history, Ash and Feather explores the battle between freedom and perfection, community and control, and the burden placed on those who see the truth before anyone else will admit it exists.