Broken Souls and Bones (The Broken Souls and Bones Series, Band 1) - Softcover

Andrews, LJ

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593818687 ISBN 13: 9780593818688

Verlag: Ace, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

A #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER!

Together they’ll restore a divided kingdom—or burn it down—in this new romantasy from USA Today bestselling author and TikTok sensation LJ Andrews.

Lyra Bien intended to live a quiet life to avoid the attention of the magic-obsessed king in the fortress of Stonegate. Until Roark Ashwood—the prince’s silent guard and rumored killer for the crown—invades her village and uncovers the truth behind the silver scars in her eyes. To save her best friend from death, she’s forced to reveal her abilities, and is immediately claimed by the crown as the next melder.

To be the King’s melder is to be revered and feared in equal measures, but above all it is a slow death sentence. Lyra is determined to find a way to free herself and her friends from bondage. But first she must get more information from the silent, brooding sentry who first took her captive: Roark.

As Lyra gets closer to Roark, she soon learns he’s nothing like she assumed—and in fact everything she needs. The more they work as allies, the harder it becomes to ignore the growing passion between them. After a sinister truth is revealed, Roark and Lyra must choose to stand against all they know, or accept their dark destiny.

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LJ Andrews is a USA Today bestselling author of fantasy romance. She could live in dark worlds with brutal romantic heroes all day. When she isn’t writing, she’s keeping her four kids alive, spending time with her hot husband, or enjoying the mountains of Utah.

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1

Roark

The boy's death was my fault.

Uther was found facedown in the river near the stone walls of the royal fortress before dawn. A new Stav Guard in the unit assigned to my watch, a mere boy of eighteen. The body was rent down the middle, chest flayed, ribs torn apart like a cracked goose egg.

He was sent to the hall of the gods in Salur too soon.

The flat cart holding the young guard's corpse rolled past a line of stoic Stav. The palace healer attempted to cover his pulpy face, tinted blue from a night in the water, but when the wheel struck a stone in the path, the linen pulled back.

My fists curled, digging into the callused flesh of my palms.

Uther's pale eyes were left open, too stiff to close, staring lifelessly at the noon sun in a wash of fright. Splatters of blood coated his neck, his lips, his shredded black tunic of the Stav.

"Dravens," a lanky Stav Guard murmured to another. "Had to be. Uther was a bone crafter."

I closed my eyes, despising the truth of it.

Tales of the different crafts of magic were written in the sagas of the first king, the Wanderer, who rescued a daughter of the gods. As a reward, the Wanderer was given pieces of the three mediums of the gods' power-bone, blood, and soul-to strengthen his fledgling kingdom.

Most within the realms of Stìgandr believed the tales were mere fables, but magical craft was real enough.

Bone craft manipulated bone into blades that were nigh unbreakable. It crafted healing tonics from bone powders, and poisons from boiled marrow. Blood craft used blood for spell casts and rune work. Soul craft took power from the dead, and was the common gift of Dravenmoor, the kingdom across the ravines.

Dravens despised King Damir of House Oleg, the king of Jorvandal, insisting he used craft to strengthen his warriors and armories through corrupt and forbidden ways.

I would not say they were wrong, but it did not lessen the rage in my blood that a boy was slaughtered for merely doing his duty.

"If I could, I'd burn every damn Draven on a pike," the guard went on.

His fellow Stav hissed at him to be silent, his gaze finding me-their superior and a Draven.

My blood belonged to the enemy kingdom, but fealty belonged to Jorvandal after being left for dead at the gates of the fortress a dozen winters ago.

But to some, even my own men, I would always be their enemy.

The heel of my boot cracked over the pebbles when I spun into the arched doorway of the Stav quarters, a longhouse built to fit dozens of men.

In the great hall, flames in the inglenook were dying to embers, and drinking horns of thin honey mead were toppled from recent nights of debauchery. Stav trainees had spent the cold months at Stonegate, but after the revelry, they were all now returned to their families and villages across the kingdom to await orders from the king.

A few younger Stav staggered to their feet, readying to greet me. I could reprimand them for not standing by for their fallen brother, but at the sight of the green tinge to their faces, the red in their eyes, perhaps they simply couldn't bear it.

I ignored their murmured salutes and strode into the larger chambers meant for Stav officers. My chamber was more a wing than anything. A library and study, a bedchamber, and washroom. I bolted the door behind me and crossed the woven rug to the washroom in ten long strides.

Along the jagged scar that carved across my chest, throat, to the hinge of my jaw, was a roaring ache, like I'd swallowed the howling rage of the sea.

Bile rose in my chest, a harrowing sort of shadow coated my gaze.

I gripped the clay washbasin, breaths sharp and deep.

Violence was no stranger to me, but it grew harder to keep the lust for blood tamed. I was the Sentry of Stonegate, and the Sentry was meant to be the stoic measure of restraint.

In this moment, I wanted to be more of a monster than those who'd slaughtered Uther.

Heat slowly faded, the storm in my head lessened. I cupped the frigid water in the basin and splashed it over my face, then returned to the room.

"You, my friend, have the most pitiful stomach. The sight of death and blood has you spewing? Honestly, what sort of royal guardian have I shackled upon myself?"

Startled as I was that another voice was in my chamber, I did not show it.

Sprawled out on my bed, ankles crossed, Prince Thane the Bold smirked back at me, likely aware I'd been berating myself. In my haste to reach the washroom, I'd foolishly left my chamber unchecked.

I frowned and it only widened his grin.

You are an ass and belong in one of the hells. My fingers moved swiftly in response, but Thane could follow even my most frenzied gestures since he'd found me outside the keep, bloodied and broken, my voice carved out the same as my place in my own clan.

"Really?" The prince chuckled. "Which one, the molten or frosted?"

Both. What if I'd had a knife in my hand?

"Roark, my oldest, dearest, most frightening friend, the better question is, Why didn't you have your knife in your hand? Growing careless, Sentry."

I shook my head and went to a personal cart topped with a wide ewer of aged wine and a horn. I filled only one horn when Thane waved a palm, refusing my offer.

"Jests aside," Thane said, kicking his legs over the edge of the bed, "you're taking this death too hard."

He was my charge.

"Roark." Thane sighed. "Don't blame yourself for the actions of those bastards. It is not your fault."

It was. In so many ways the death of the young Stav was entirely my fault.

We don't know why he was killed, I told him.

"We'll find out, and when we do, whoever is responsible will pay."

I used one hand to respond. Why are you here? Isn't your mother forcing you to plan your own wedding?

"There likely won't be a wedding if Stav Guard are getting slaughtered." Thane winced. "Apologies, I'm careless with my words in your state of distress, allow me to try again. Yes, I've managed to slip my mother, flee the palace like a frightened child, and come to see you instead."

I let out a breath of air, a soft laugh.

Thane was a warrior prince from the golden ridge of hair braided down the center of his head to the bones pierced in his ear. He stood just taller than me, and I was no small man. But bony Queen Ingir and her endless revelry was enough to frighten away any man lest he be tossed into the madness of imported satins, silks, and different flavors of fillings for iced cakes.

"I've come for a purpose." Thane reached into the pocket of his trousers and removed a tattered, folded parchment. "You have heard of Jarl Jakobson, yes?"

The jarl obsessed with finding favor from the king?

Thane jabbed the folded parchment in the air between us. "The very one. He's made quite an interesting discovery."

The prince handed me the missive. I read it through once, then once more. Thane was no longer smiling.

My fingers gestured swiftly. Jakobson is certain of this?

"Seems my father's blood casts have finally worked."

King Damir couldn't claim the blood-tracking spells as his since the queen was the blood crafter in the fortress. Not that it mattered.

Seasons ago, King Damir took spilled blood from the house of the lost crafter. If any soul from the same bloodline came near, blood crafters would know it. The king's spells forced every village to have a royally decreed blood crafter within the borders.

All of it was done to find the child who'd disappeared. A child whose magical craft brought three kingdoms against a small village in the knolls.

There was nothing left of it now.

"But there's trouble." Thane interrupted my thoughts, pacing in front of my doorway....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Ace
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593818687
• ISBN 13: 9780593818688
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 480
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland