The Thief and the Throne

Some heists change everything. This one ended the world. Nessa grew up in the ash-choked lower rings of Sorell, surviving on quick hands and quicker exits. She doesn't steal for sport. She steals to live. So when a fence offers her a fortune for one simple job, she doesn't ask many questions. Get in. Take the Crown. Get out. She takes the Crown of Sorrow from its pedestal and everything goes wrong. The ancient relic doesn't just sit on her head.
It binds her soul to the kingdom's exiled prince, Evander, carving a glowing betrothal mark into her skin and waking something terrible in the crypts beneath the capital. Something old. Something hungry. Something that has been waiting for exactly this kind of mistake. Prince Evander has spent ten years in exile atoning for the sins of a murderous bloodline. He never intended to return to Sorell. He certainly never intended to find his magical betrothed living in a condemned building and extremely hostile about the whole situation.
But the Crown's curse cannot be broken by force, by distance, or by wishing very hard. It can only be broken by two people willing to be completely, terrifyingly honest with each other. Nessa doesn't do honest. Evander doesn't do vulnerable. And the ancient entity rising beneath Sorell feeds specifically on the fear and division between them. They have until the Hollow King fully breaches the surface to break the curse and destroy it.
If it escapes, it won't stop at the capital. It will consume everything, starting with the thousands of people in the lower rings who already have nothing. For Nessa, that means the only home she ever had. For Evander, that means the only people he ever fought to protect. The world is ending. The magic is forcing them together. And somewhere in the forced marches through frozen wastelands, in the arguments and the silences and the moments when the bond bleeds one heart's truth directly into the other, something far more dangerous than a curse is beginning to form. The Thief and the Throne is a slow-burn romantasy for readers who love morally complex heroes, fiercely independent heroines, forced proximity done right, and romances that are earned through every painful, beautiful, infuriating page.