The Ash Crown Covenant

By: Kimberly A. Peters

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Months after Serathyne transforms from a Crucible monarchy into a council-led realm built on voluntary Heartfire, the wider continent reacts.
Some kingdoms attempt reform.
Others accelerate extraction.
One empire — older, colder, and far more organized than the fractured coalition — sees opportunity.
The Virellian Dominion does not harvest love.
It eradicates it.
Where Serathyne once drained bonds to sustain power, the Dominion believes bonds weaken discipline. Their soldiers are conditioned from childhood to suppress emotional attachment entirely. No marriages. No pair-bonding. No family structures beyond state assignment.
And their armies do not fracture.
When Virellian emissaries arrive with an ultimatum — dissolve the Heartfire web or face assimilation — Serathyne faces a new threat:
Not siege.
Not extraction.
Ideological war.
And when a Virellian commander captures one of Serathyne’s border towns without killing a single citizen — simply severing their emotional resonance through unknown magic — Lyra and Kael discover something terrifying:
Love can be silenced.
Not extracted.
Muted.
To stop the Dominion, they must confront a weapon that does not consume love —
It nullifies it.
And the only way to fight nullification may require them to deepen their own bond beyond anything Serathyne has ever allowed.
At risk of becoming something dangerously powerful.