Web of Vows and Vengeance

This is the first book in The Hirathean Path series, a fantasy romance set in the kingdom of Morathka. The story is narrated by Rose Kultavaris, a twenty-three-year-old woman living in the slums of Wrohelm, Morathka's capital.

Fourteen years earlier, Rose's mother, Reeva, a gifted healer, was falsely blamed for the death of Queen Knavin. Eleven-year-old Prince Kyor told King Korvane that Reeva was responsible. The king stripped Rose's family of their magic, executed her infant brother Florian, and expelled them from court. Reeva died of illness and Rose's father drank himself to death, leaving Rose to raise her younger sister Acacia, called Kay, in poverty.

When a once-in-a-century tournament called the Retterheld is announced, Rose sees her chance. The Retterheld is a series of deadly trials honoring Etta, the Goddess of Life, and the winner receives a divine gift. Rose infiltrates Etta's temple, offers her tears to the Goddess, and declares her mother's innocence. Inside, she encounters a man with striking blue eyes; they flirt before Rose leaves without learning his identity.

Rose is chosen as a Rettling, one of the contestants in the Retterheld. Prince Kyor's name follows, alarming Kay. Rose visits Priestess Dinah Poltick, a grandmother figure who raised Reeva, and asks her to arrange for Lord Artur Lorathin, the only courtier who helped the family after their fall, to protect Kay. Dinah gives Rose rare seeds, fighting gloves, and a copper-hilted dagger that pulses with energy when Rose grasps it.

At the High Hold, Rose reunites with Jonas Lorathin, Artur's son and her childhood friend. Zara Duarte, a Rettling from Rowell, uses her deleterious magic to reopen Rose's old wounds. Rose retaliates with a fire bead, a one-use magical weapon from the slum community, igniting Zara's skin. Llinos, a wind-wielding Rettling from the Eastern Isles, extinguishes the flames, but Zara vows revenge.

Rose befriends a group of Eastern Isles Rettlings, including Benny, Llinos, Loch, and Jai, who validate her mother's innocence and form the core of her alliance. At the Cotillion ball, Rose discovers the blue-eyed man from the temple is Prince Kyor, whose eyes were permanently changed from brown to blue after his mother's death. She is horrified to realize she has been attracted to the man who ruined her life. King Korvane insults Rose and threatens Jonas's family for associating with her.

Commander Zelle, a siphon whose power neutralizes others' magic, leads training and offers Rose private sessions. Commander Holden, who despises Rose, openly berates her. Kyor joins the morning sessions, and Zelle confides that Kyor knows he lied about Rose's mother and is trying to atone. Rose meets Caroline, a library scribe she later realizes is Llinos's long-lost partner, Caz, and reunites them. At the Sunken Temple, High Priestess Mila conducts a blood vow ceremony by plunging a dagger through each Rettling's hand; Rose recognizes the blade as identical to Dinah's gift. Jai bleeds uncontrollably and dies.

The first trial pits the Rettlings against nine jötnar, thirty-foot-tall giants, on a beach. Rose climbs the tallest, slits its throat, and falls; Llinos catches her with wind. The trial claims many lives. Afterward, Zara sets fire to Rose's room, and Rose spends five days recovering. Holden orchestrates a training exercise targeting Rose until Kyor ends it with lightning. Rose discovers her dagger is one of the three blades of Vindrun, a set of legendary magical weapons, though the relevant page has been torn from the book.

The second trial forbids magic: Each Rettling must find a loved one bound in a forest before dawn. Rose frees Kay as dawn breaks. At the post-trial ball, rebels attack alongside Issen ice-wielders, a feared people from beyond the Coltan Mountains whose ice magic is forbidden in Morathka. Zelle is killed by a rebel using illusion magic. Rose follows Kyor to the battle yard, where he carves a tally mark into a wall for every death he has witnessed, and tells him she believes he is redeemable.

Kyor resumes training Rose, and the tension between them escalates. Jonas, consumed with guilt over accidentally blinding a fellow Rettling during the forest trial, reaches for a kiss that Rose deflects. Rose goes to Kyor's room, where they nearly have sex before Kyor stops, fearing she is using intimacy to ensure his silence about her forbidden ice powers. Rose cannot say she trusts him, and he leaves.

The third trial sends the Rettlings across Follen Lake, a frozen battlefield haunted by spectral warriors who infiltrate their minds, inducing suicidal impulses. Kyor saves Rose from cutting her own throat. When the ice cracks beneath her, a spectral Issen warrior tells Rose to ask for help. Ice magic surges through her: She freezes the cracking ice and sends a bolt of ice that kills Oke, a Rowell Rettling. Kyor swears to keep her secret.

At the next ball, Holden gives Rose a glass of poisoned wine. Rose hands the glass to Llinos, who drinks it and dies. Rose pursues Holden; Kyor blocks his escape with lightning. Rose shows mercy, but when Holden lunges at her with a sword, she kills him. The group carries Llinos's body to the sea for a funeral in Eastern Isles tradition. Kyor holds Rose through the night.

Rose tells Kyor she trusts him, and they begin an intimate encounter interrupted by chimes announcing the fourth trial. The Rettlings must row across a channel to the Eastern Isles, but a massive kraken bound by priestess magic blocks the crossing. Rose directs Kyor to disrupt the priestesses' ward with lightning, then jumps into the water to communicate with the creature, nearly drowning before Kyor saves her. High Priestess Mila disqualifies Kyor for attacking the priestesses. On the Eastern Isles, Jonas proposes marriage to protect Rose's ice-magic secret, implicitly threatening exposure. Rose refuses, declaring she loves Kyor.

The final trial, the Ofur, begins on a plateau in the Coltan Mountains. Zara assassinates a fellow Rettling from behind. Rose shields her group with ice, but Benny is wounded and urges her onward. Rose and Jonas navigate a maze inside the mountain. Rose reaches the summit chamber and finds the Goddess Etta inhabiting Dinah's body. Zara has arrived first, but the Goddess declares the trial incomplete. Etta strips both women of their magic and announces that whichever kills Jonas will win. Rose refuses to kill her friend. Zara attacks Jonas; Rose intervenes, slashing Zara's forearm with Dinah's dagger, which causes unstoppable bleeding. Zara dies. The Goddess declares Rose the winner and grants her request: the restoration of her and Kay's magic, titles, wealth, and home.

Kyor finds Rose and they share a joyful reunion. She discovers she can grow plants with her restored magic, just like her mother. At the victory ball, Kay reveals she is pregnant by Hew, Kyor's childhood friend, who refuses to marry her because King Korvane has arranged Hew's betrothal to a Dorain duchess. Kay plans to marry Lord Artur, Jonas's elderly father, for security, sparking a bitter argument between the sisters. King Korvane finds Kyor and Rose together and demands their relationship end, framing the situation so that admitting the lie about Rose's mother would constitute treason, costing Kyor his title, his command, and his soldiers' lives. Unable to speak the truth, Kyor silently walks away with his father, leaving Rose alone with her restored powers, her shattered heart, and the knowledge that the kingdom's power structures remain unchanged.