The Scourgemaster

Naiya is not the Scourgemaster.

Shes a runaway slave who just escaped a debt-farm—not a prophesied warrior who can control an ancient demon. But the soldiers who spot her mid-escape on the night the Scourgemaster was foretold to appear dont believe that. Overnight, her face fills wanted posters across every city, and the colonial empire that razed her home hunts her as the key to winning their war.

Naiya knows they have it wrong. Someone directed the soldiers toward her that night. Someone only she saw. Her plan is simple: find the real Scourgemaster, cash in the bounty on their head, and finally flee the reach of empire.

That is, until shes captured by a behemoth of a bounty hunter.

Disillusioned ex-soldier and infamous hunter, Ríu is dying. As vessel to the demon, he is deteriorating under the strain of its power. When the prophecy manifests, his choices shrink to two: become a weapon of war under the Scourgemasters control, or sever the demon by killing her. Easy.

Convinced that Naiya is the Scourgemaster, Ríu drags her across a war-torn land, through shattered deserts and watchful tombs, in search of the long-lost temple where he must take her life to save his own. But as hunter and hunted are forced to rely on one another, mutual animosity shifts into a love that could prove catastrophic.

Because the real Scourgemaster has plans for Ríu and Naiya. And freedom has a price they may no longer be willing to pay.

The Scourgemaster is a standalone war epic romantasy that weaves the Lucy-Ghoul dynamic of Fallout, the tomb-hunting fun of The Mummy, and the vivid exploration of the horrors of war in Daughter of No Worlds. It features a grumpy meets fearless, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance and centers a heroine with PTSD and bipolar disorder and a hero with a chronic illness.