Empress

Princess Nadia, slave to Sir Rallian, is growing impatient. Even with powerful people such as the Imperial Advisor, Lord Polaris, and Marchioness Ivanna of Aramycius trying to free her, she has spent years as a slave. And now that Noelle is an empire ruled by the conniving and manipulative Empress Ariana, freedom seems hopeless. To make matters worse, Rallian knows Naida is a mermaid, Ariana doesn't take Polaris seriously, and Ivanna is losing her influence on the public. Slowly but surely, the prophecy Polaris had recognized years ago in the Royal Dream no longer appears relevant. This is only substantiated when Rein Bow begins to have her own prophetic dreams again, which seem to contradict the Royal Dream. Nevertheless, Polaris and Ivanna are devoted to freeing Nadia without her having to fight for it in the Annual Slave Arena. But as oppression weighs heavier on Nadia's shoulders, she begins to slip through their fingers, leaning toward signing up against their advice to wait. Will Polaris and Ivanna be able to keep Nadia from signing up for the Annual Slave Arena before they can free her? Will they even be able to free her without her fighting in the arena?

BLURB Rylan Vane was born a noble but died a nobody. Stripped of his bloodline and cast into the lowest caste of vampire society, he survives in the shadows of the undercity, feeding on vermin and hiding from enforcers who would finish what his family’s betrayers started. He is weak, nameless, and forgotten. But when a brush with death forces him into the forbidden Catacombs of Flesh, he discovers something impossible: a Seal of the First Blood, an ancient heirloom forged by the progenitor of all vampires. The Seal should have destroyed him, instead, it bonded to him, awakening a power no vampire has possessed in a millennia, and a terrifying ability to hear the Echoes of other Seals scattered across the Dominion. Now Rylan must navigate a world that wants him dead. Noble houses will hunt him for the power he carries. The Empress, who has ruled for a thousand years through her own Seal, will see him as a threat to her throne. And the Seals themselves whisper to him, offering power beyond imagination, at a price that may cost him his soul. From the gutters of Nyxara to the heart of the Crimson Throne, Rylan will rise. But the question is not whether he can become powerful enough to survive. The question is what he will become in the process.