The Bone Shard Daughter

The emperor maintains order through creatures animated by bone-shard magic, but unrest is spreading across the islands he rules. His daughter Lin, denied recognition as his heir, turns to the forbidden knowledge that might restore her position. The power she seeks is tied to the suffering of the people she hopes to govern. Beyond the palace, other lives reveal the empire’s fractures from different angles. Among them are Phalue, a governor’s daughter, and her lover Ranami, whose experience of poverty makes their political differences impossible to ignore. This opening volume of The Drowning Empire follows an ensemble caught between personal loyalty and systemic injustice. Its central mysteries ask who benefits from magical authority and who pays to sustain it.