The Lion & the Deathless Dark

Carissa Broadbent’s The Lion and the Deathless Dark (2026) is a fantasy romance (romantasy) novel and the fifth installment in the bestselling Crowns of Nyaxia series. The book begins the Bloodborn Duet, introducing a new central couple while continuing the saga’s overarching depiction of a dystopian world where politically fractured vampire courts vie for power under the shadow of warring gods.

The novel follows Kyrene, a human warrior who wields a sentient, divine blade. After a personal tragedy fuels her thirst for vengeance against the gods, she forges an uneasy alliance with Septimus, a cursed vampire prince who harbors his own secret plot to dismantle the divine order. The narrative subverts traditional “chosen one” tropes to explore The Struggle for Autonomy Against Predetermined Roles. In a world where Survival at the Expense of Innocence is a daily reality, characters are forced to make unthinkable moral compromises. Ultimately, the novel presents Loyalty as an Antidote to Exploitative Authority, as personal bonds become the only meaningful motivation in a cruel, predetermined world.

This guide refers to the 2026 Bramble/Tor Publishing Group First Edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, child abuse, substance use, suicidal ideation, self-harm, pregnancy loss, death, sexual content, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Kyrene serves as the Vindica Ultis, a divine warrior for Shiket, the Goddess of Justice, wielding a sentient blessed sword named Zefiah. Accompanied by her found family—Mirie, a priestess; Marko, a fighter; and Valentina, a brilliant young machinist who crafts technological weapons—Kyrene struggles to make ends meet. This forces her to take on lucrative side bounties, much to the disapproval of her goddess. 

While pursuing a bounty on a man named Gaveer Iron, Kyrene’s group raids a cultist compound. During the chaotic fight, Valentina is badly injured, and the arrival of “the soulless,” bestial creatures created by vampires, complicates their escape. To save her companions, Kyrene makes the difficult decision to leave a cage of human prisoners behind, using them as a bloody diversion for the soulless. The act horrifies the idealistic Valentina, creating a rift between her and Kyrene. 

Shortly after, Kyrene is confronted by Septimus, an elegant and mysterious Bloodborn vampire prince, who warns her that Queen Egrette of the House of Shadow is hunting her and will ambush her in Yiferis, the city where Shiket has commanded her to go. Kyrene decides to send her companions away to the supposed safety of Hegaella, a fortress-city, giving Mirie one of her divine gauntlets for added protection.

Kyrene travels to Yiferis alone to complete Shiket’s mission, but she is soon ambushed by Shadowborn assassins. Septimus appears again, revealing that he used the divine gauntlet he saw Kyrene give Mirie as a tracker to mislead Queen Egrette, sending the full force of the Shadowborn army to Hegaella instead. Horrified, Kyrene abandons her mission and rushes to Hegaella, where she discovers a massacre. The city has been destroyed, and she finds the mutilated bodies of Mirie, Marko, and Valentina. As the vampire goddess Nyaxia happily surveys the carnage from above, Kyrene, consumed by grief and rage, accuses the goddess of abandoning her most devout followers. Shiket coldly admits she allowed the attack to happen as punishment for Kyrene’s recent neglect of her divine duties. In an act of vengeance, Kyrene attacks and kills Shiket, an act that shatters the goddess’s divine power and nearly costs Kyrene her own life. 

Septimus rescues the dying Kyrene and takes her to the isolated island kingdom of Glaea. There, he reveals his true purpose: to orchestrate the collapse of the White Pantheon, the council of gods. With the help of the seer Queen Sylina, he shows Kyrene a “threadwalk”—a vision of a possible future in which the Vindica Ultis is a prophesied “god slayer” who kills several more gods, leading to the Pantheon’s downfall. Kyrene, now driven by a thirst for vengeance against all gods, agrees to take on the “job.”

Glaea is attacked by Srana, the goddess of machinery and an army of automatons—reanimated corpses fused with machinery. In the ensuing battle, Septimus wounds Srana with her own spear while Kyrene unsuccessfully tries to save two children. The couple escapes through a magical aethergate and emerges in the hostile territory of the House of Shadow. They are briefly captured by Queen Egrette, only to escape again during an attack by Queen Oyarya and her army of winged Nightborn vampires. 

Kyrene and Septimus hunt for divine weapons powerful enough to kill the remaining gods. The first target is Kajmar, the god of pleasure, and the weapon they require is a magical harp hidden in the remote Bloodborn city of Estrys. When Kyrene and Septimus arrive in Estrys, they find another massacre, this one perpetrated by vampire hunters allied with Kajmar. They retrieve the harp, guarded by Erekkus, a once-loyal soldier to Septimus’s older brother who has transformed into a monstrous creature covered in pulsing red tentacles of blood magic. Septimus humanely kills his former friend, ending his suffering. He tells Kyrene that Erekkus’s fate illustrates the horrific nature of the Bloodborn curse, a divine punishment from Nyaxia that slowly degrades a vampire’s mind and body. 

The couple travels to a pleasure temple in Kajmar’s territory. Inside, Kyrene and Septimus are ensnared in a powerful illusion created by both Kajmar and Ix, the goddess of fertility. Feigning submission, Kyrene and Septimus play along with the gods’ games. Septimus uses the magical harp to show them a carefully edited vision of the future—one that depicts the fall of the White Pantheon but also the death of Nyaxia. By claiming that only one of them survives in this future, he successfully turns Kajmar against his lover, Ix. In the chaos that follows, Septimus helps Kyrene kill Ix with her own divine bow. Immediately after, Kyrene uses the harp’s string to decapitate a stunned Kajmar. As they stand over the remains of two more dead gods, Nyaxia appears. She is pleased with the death of her rivals and seems ready to accept Septimus and Kyrene into her service. Kyrene is poised to attack Nyaxia, but Septimus tells her to hold back, and they retreat to the House of Blood. 

Septimus tells Kyrene that the Vindica Ultis is destined to kill Nyaxia with Shiket’s five blades that lie in the ruined temple at Hagaella. They travel there and kill Srana when she and her army of automatons attack them. However, Kyrene’s attempts to kill Nyaxia fail, and Zefiah shatters. Nyaxia then reveals to a horrified Septimus that Kyrene is not the true Vindica Ultis. Ten years prior, 17-year-old Kyrene was dying and pregnant and begged for the real Vindica Ultis’s help in saving her unborn child. When the Vindica Ultis callously refused, Kyrene killed her in a fit of rage and stole Zefiah. The goddess Shiket allowed Kyrene to wield the blade and serve her but clarified that she would never be the chosen Vindica Ultis. 

Heartbroken by Kyrene’s betrayal, Septimus succumbs to the Bloodborn curse. Kyrene uses Valentina’s last gift, a stringless crossbow, to fire a silver bolt at Nyaxia. The bolt draws a single drop of the goddess’s blood, which activates an ancient set of divine shackles hidden within the temple floor. Nyaxia is imprisoned and stripped of her power, but her final blast of power mortally wounds Kyrene. Just then, Acaeja, the goddess of fate, appears and reveals that she orchestrated the entire war, manipulating gods and mortals alike for millennia to clear a path for her own ascension. She declares her intention to remake the world into a tightly controlled dystopia, ending free will.

Septimus, ravaged by his curse, takes up Zefiah’s broken hilt, preparing to grant Kyrene the mercy-kill they had promised each other. However, with her dying breath, Kyrene makes a final, desperate plea: “Turn me.” Septimus complies, biting her and initiating the process of turning her into a vampire. 

Three months later, Kyrene awakens as a newly Turned vampire in a world being unmade by Acaeja. Atrius, the king of Glaea, informs her that Septimus now wanders the land as a mindless beast. Kyrene also learns that, as a vampire, she cannot use or communicate with the broken Zefiah. Gazing out at the disintegrating world, Kyrene vows to hunt down Acaeja and to save Septimus. In the epilogue, winged vampires under Acaeja’s control capture a feral, amnesiac Septimus. His last coherent thought is Kyrene’s name.