The Ashen Cross - Book One — A Copper for the Dead. The Ashen Cross, #1

In a kingdom ruled by fear, the Church of the Sun Father burns heretics and hunts magic-users. Monsters stalk the marshes. Villages whisper of things taken in the night. And the Grey Wardens-once the realm's protectors-have been hunted to near extinction. Rowan is one of the last. A solitary monster hunter, he wanders from village to village, killing what needs killing and collecting his coin. No attachments.
No questions. No hope. Then a woman walks into his tavern. Nyra is a disgraced noblewoman with a dead father and a dangerous secret: proof that the Church is not what it seems. That the monsters they hunt are not accidents. That something far worse is breeding in the shadows. She hires Rowan for protection. She gets far more than she bargained for. Together, they uncover a conspiracy that reaches from the lowest dungeons to the highest thrones.
Cages full of victims. Experiments that twist flesh and soul. A war that has been raging in silence for decades. And a farmer named Corin, who was taken, changed, and returned as something that kills children. His sister wants answers. His sister wants revenge. His sister is coming with them.