Demi Winters’s debut novel, The Road of Bones (2023), is the first installment in The Ashen Series, an ongoing collection of romantasy novels. Inspired by Icelandic geography and Old Norse mythology, The Road of Bones follows Silla Nordvig, a young woman who has spent her life on the run with her adoptive father. When her father is murdered by mercenaries sent by the ruthless Queen Signe, Silla embarks on a perilous solo journey to a rumored safe haven in the north. The Road of Bones has gained significant popularity on social media, particularly TikTok, and has been praised for its Viking-inspired world-building. The series is set in the fictional kingdom of Íseldur and continues with Kingdom of Claw and Dawn of the North. An adjacent novel, Roots of Darkness, focuses on one of Silla’s comrades and is chronologically set between the second and third books of the series. Two additional books have yet to be published and are projected to conclude the series.

The Road of Bones explores themes including The Criminalization of Identity and Belief, Found Family as a Survival Strategy, and The Dangers of Intimacy in an Authoritarian Regime. The story adheres to many conventions of the popular “romantasy” subgenre, blending an epic fantasy quest with a central plot driven by slow-burn romantic tension.

This guide is based on the 2025 Dell Trade Paperback Edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of physical and emotional abuse, addiction, graphic violence, sexual content, sexual assault, and death.

Plot Summary

As the first installment of The Ashen Series, The Road of Bones is set in the Kingdom of Íseldur, an island nation that was conquered 17 years earlier by King Ivar Ironheart, an Urkan warlord who executed the ruling Volsik royal family and outlawed all forms of magic (“galdur”). With the rise of Ivar’s regime, people who wield magic (the Galdra) are hunted by the Klaernar, the king’s elite soldiers, and publicly executed through ritual bloodletting and stoning.

As the novel opens, 20-year-old Silla Nordvig is working as a kitchen hand on a nobleman’s steading in the southern village of Skarstad. She and her father, whom she knows as Matthias, have spent years moving from town to town under false names, never staying longer than three months. Silla is haunted by a phantom that only she can see: a little blond girl in a torn nightdress who often appears without warning, speaks to her, and vanishes. After Silla witnesses the brutal public stoning of three women whom the Klaernar have accused of witchcraft, her father tells her that they must travel to Kopa, a city far to the north, where a contact of his has arranged for them to live in a shield-house (a safe refuge for people in hiding).

As they return to their home to pack, six warriors ambush them. Calling Matthias “Tómas,” the leader declares that Matthias is not Silla’s biological father and reveals that Queen Signe (the wife of King Ivar) has been searching for Silla. Matthias fights back with great skill, killing several attackers before dying of his wounds. With his last words, he assures Silla that he loved her as if she were his own daughter, and he directs her to check inside his mattress and go to Kopa.

Later, Silla finds a letter instructing Tómas to seek a man named Skeggagrim at a house beside the Dragon’s Lair Inn in Kopa. Silla arms herself with a hammer, packs the heart-shaped rock that her father gave her, and secures a small supply of the skjöld leaves that she takes as a remedy for her chronic headaches. She then sets out alone.

Silla survives several nights in the Twisted Pinewoods, traveling by foot and relying on double doses of her headache remedy to numb her grief. A roving warband attempts to rob and assault her, but she is saved by the timely arrival of an enormous grimwolf that kills the attackers. She reaches the town of Reykfjord by hitching a ride with a woman named Vigdis, who lies to the Klaernar at a bridge checkpoint and smuggles Silla into the city. Vigdis also warns Silla about the Slátrari, a murderer who has been running rampant and burning victims from the inside out.

The narrative introduces Skraeda Clever Tongue, a red-haired operative who serves Queen Signe. Skraeda is a Solacer, a type of Galdra who can sense and manipulate others’ emotions; she has decided to betray her own kind in order to survive. Stationed at the Reykfjord checkpoint, she fails to identify Silla but later tracks down and interrogates Vigdis, killing her after forcing her to confess that Silla plans to head north on the Road of Bones.

In Reykfjord, Silla overhears a group of mercenaries discussing a secret job that they have taken in the northern town of Istré. Realizing that they are heading north, Silla hides in their supply wagon. The mercenaries, who call themselves the Bloodaxe Crew, are led by Rey Bjarg, a towering, tattooed man whose piercing glare has earned him the moniker of “Axe Eyes.” His second-in-command is Jonas Svik, a golden-haired fighter who is driven to earn enough money to reclaim his family’s lost farmstead. When Silla is discovered, she bargains for safe passage by offering to help them extract vital information from their former leader, Kraki, who keeps an important book of lore. Rey grudgingly agrees to take Silla as far as the town of Hver and insists that she obey orders, be honest, and tell no one about the job. Hearing that she came from Skarstad, the mercenaries ask her if she was involved in the carnage there; Silla gives a false backstory about a land dispute to explain her father’s death.

Over the next few weeks on the road, Silla wins the Crew’s trust through her cooking, which is better than that of the mute warrior, Sigrun. She also befriends Hekla, a warrior with a prosthetic metal arm who opens up about having killed her abusive husband and teaches Silla some basic knife defense. Meanwhile, Silla and Jonas clash constantly, but they also share an escalating physical attraction despite Hekla’s warnings that Jonas uses and discards women. When Rey sees Silla taking the skjöld leaves, he warns her that they are dangerous; Silla discounts this. As time passes, Rey continues his surly behavior, and Silla stands up to him, declaring that he cannot scare her away. Meanwhile, Skraeda tracks Silla north and indirectly deduces that Silla is traveling with the Bloodaxe Crew. After a brief stop in the town of Svarti, where Silla resupplies her skjöld, Jonas approaches Silla alone in the woods. They kiss but are interrupted by the attack of a forest creature called a skógungar, which Jonas kills.

Rey and Silla travel alone to Kraki’s alpine home, intending to secure the former leader’s book of lore. Meanwhile, the rest of the Bloodaxe Crew continues toward Hver. When Rey and Silla meet Kraki, he calls Rey by his true name, Reynir Galtung. Silla charms Kraki into giving up the information, but she indirectly reveals that her backstory about a land dispute is a lie. Later, Rey discovers the book and steals it. As he and Silla head to Hver, Silla leverages the secret of Rey’s true name, blackmailing him into swearing to take her all the way to Kopa.

Suddenly, Skraeda ambushes them, using her Solacer abilities to incapacitate Rey. Silla saves his life by striking Skraeda, and Rey pushes the unconscious warrior off the cliff.

The two return to Hver, where the Crew is celebrating the summer solstice. Jonas confesses to Silla that he cannot stop thinking about her, and they sleep together. Afterward, he gives her a hand-carved wooden talisman designed to resemble his family crest. They agree to keep their relationship a secret from Rey. Jonas then shares his most painful secret, revealing that he killed his abusive father after the man beat his mother to death. Silla tells him that her mother was executed as Galdra after a neighbor falsely accused their family of bearing magic.

As the Crew returns to the road, Rey gives Silla books that include an herbal guide. Reading the entry on skjöld, Silla finally accepts that the leaves are highly addictive and dangerous and realizes that her chronic headaches are withdrawal symptoms. In addition to causing phantom visions like the blond-haired girl, the leaves can also suppress magic.

The knowledge of the leaves haunt Silla. After killing an attacking vampire deer on her own, she gains the courage to surrender her phial of skjöld leaves to Rey. She then endures two days of severe withdrawal and realizes that the blond girl is a suppressed memory of her sister. When Silla wakes, she is certain that her sister is alive somewhere.

One night, Silla and Jonas sneak to his tent and have sex while the others relax around the fire. Predatory wolfspiders suddenly attack, and as the Crew rushes to battle, Silla remains alone in the tent. White light erupts from her forearms as her magic manifests for the first time.

In the town of Skutur, Skraeda, who survived the fall, corners Silla in an abandoned temple. Using psychic assault, Skraeda forces Silla to relive a suppressed memory of Matthias carrying her away as her sister screams and calls her by the name “Eisa.” Skraeda confirms that Silla is Eisa Volsik, a princess of the deposed royal family. (Eisa is widely believed to have been killed 17 years ago. Her older sister, Saga Volsik, now lives as King Ivar’s ward.) Silla escapes by collapsing a wall onto Skraeda.

Whey Silla admits that the Klaernar are after her, the Crew votes unanimously to protect her. She feels guilty about withholding the queen’s direct involvement and her true identity. On the road, a massive force of the queen’s mercenaries attacks, and a hooded man identifies Silla as Eisa Volsik within Jonas’s earshot. During the battle, Jonas’s younger brother Ilías is fatally stabbed as Jonas rushed to save Silla.

Consumed by grief, Jonas blames Silla for Ilías’s death and silently condemns her for her accumulated lies. Not knowing the change in his thoughts, Silla stays with him to help bury Ilias as the rest of the Crew Rides ahead. However, Jones has secretly stolen the skjöld phial and drugs Silla’s water to incapacitate her, then takes her to the Klaernar garrison in Kopa, intending to collect a bounty that will fund the reclamation of his family’s lands. Silla wakes in a prison cell. Kommandor Valf, the garrison commander, feeds her a catalyst that forces her magic to surface, then beats her and attempts to sexually assault her. Using techniques that Hekla taught her, Silla fights back and kills him.

Silla escapes the garrison and flees to Skeggagrim’s home but finds Skraeda waiting next to his corpse. Skraeda reveals her plans to steal Silla’s magic using “míkrób,” tiny parasitic organisms that feed on galdur. Silla destroys the phial of míkrób and kills Skraeda.

Rey, who traveled to Kopa independently, learns of Jonas’s betrayal and infiltrates the city through a hidden passage, killing over 20 Klaernar with tendrils of burning smoke from his palms. This act confirms that Rey is the Slátrari. He finds Silla and carries her to safety, revealing that he came to save her because he now considers her to be a member of the Bloodaxe Crew. He plans to take her to Kalasgarde in the far northern Nordur lands, where allies can shelter her. When he asks why the queen wants her, Silla cannot bring herself to say that she is Eisa Volsik; Rey tells her to share when she is ready.

An epilogue shifts to Saga Volsik’s perspective in Askaborg Castle. Now 22 years old and betrothed to King Ivar’s young son, Saga has severe anxiety and agoraphobia, and she possesses a secret telepathic ability. Overhearing Queen Signe discussing how Eisa escaped with help from the Slátrari, Saga learns that her sister is alive and resolves to find Eisa, setting the stage for the next book in the series.