The Ascended

The high-stakes trials of Carissa Broadbent's The Serpent and the Wings of Night meet the forbidden romance of Keri Lake's Nocticadia in the first of the Aesymarean Duet, as twins thrust into a brutal tournament for godhood must navigate forbidden desires and their own drive for revenge. In a world where divine power bleeds into the mortal realm, Thais Morvaren has mastered the art of deception. To her seaside village, she's just a fisherman's daughter, serving oysters to summer tourists. In secret, she hides her ability to forge weapons from starlight-a power that would force her into the deadly Trials of Ascension. But when a priest's ritual exposes her divine heritage, Thais is seized and conscripted into the trials against her will. Now trapped in a competition she never wanted to enter, she transforms her fear into purpose: to kill Olinthar, King of the Gods-the father whose divine touch proved fatal to her mother. To take down a god, she must become one, even if it costs her everything. What she doesn't expect is her twin brother's powers suddenly manifesting, forcing him into the trials alongside her-leaving Thais to protect more than just herself. Worse still, the selection ceremony binds her to a mentor: Xül. A necromancer prince with blood-soaked hands, a sharp tongue, and dark secrets of his own. From the moment they meet, sparks fly. He's insufferably arrogant, she's stubborn to the bone, and neither has any intention of yielding to the other... or to the heat between them. Each trial survived brings her closer to godhood, but beneath the spectacle of competition, something ancient and malevolent stalks the shadows of the divine realm-a darkness that threatens to unravel the heavens themselves. Thais may have been forced into the Trials seeking survival, but she'll finish them seeking vengeance. And the cost of godhood is rising. Because some stars aren't meant to be weapons. Some stars are meant to fall.