Daylight of Ash. The Ash & Crown Accord Series, #1

A fallen princess. A ruthless enforcer. A marriage forged in ash, steel, and blood. When Ashfall burns, Elira Ashborne is left with only one impossible choice: marry the enemy's most feared Crown Enforcer or watch her people die. Kael Varyn is not offering mercy. He is offering containment, law, and the cold promise of survival. To the Steel Dominion, Elira is a weapon to be controlled. To her people, she is the last ember of a broken crown.
To Kael, she is a risk he has been ordered to contain, even if doing so means standing closer to fire than any man should. But Elira is not a quiet bride. Inside the Dominion palace, blood-bound vows become chains, court smiles hide knives, and every whispered alliance can become a death sentence. As Elira learns the rules of the empire that caged her, she discovers that the crown is hiding more than conquest.
A deadly ledger, buried crimes, and a growing rebellion threaten to tear the Dominion apart from within. And Kael, the man meant to be her warden, may be the only one who understands how dangerous she truly is. In a world where crowns are weapons and love is the most dangerous throne, fire and steel must decide whether to break each other or burn the whole empire down. Daylight of Ash is Book One of The Ash & Crown Accord Series, a dark romantasy and political fantasy novel filled with forced marriage, enemies-to-lovers tension, court intrigue, slow-burn danger, rebellion, betrayal, and a heroine who refuses to kneel.