The crown is broken. The hunger remains.

Two years after shattering the demonic crown that bound his kingdom to a supernatural pact, Serik Valdane lives in exile with corruption pulsing through his veins. He believed the sacrifice ended the bargain.

He was wrong.

Children are being born with dark sigils beneath their skin. A village vanishes into the earth. And the hunger that fed on the old hierarchy has not died, it has dispersed into every oath-bound bloodline in the realm.

Three factions circle the empty throne. A military commander building an army. A priest exploiting the afflicted. A royal cousin forging a new crown from the shards of the old.

Serik must return to the capital he saved and face the truth he’s been carrying in his blood: the corruption cannot be destroyed. It can only be contained. And containment demands a price that no act of heroism can pay, only endurance.

THE VEINS OF THE BLACK THRONE is the second novel in The Ashen Crown Saga, grimdark fantasy for readers of Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, and R. F. Kuang. A story about systemic corruption, generational consequence, and the cost of a sacrifice that never ends.