The Shards of My Soul (Book I in the Ascended Series)

In the northern royal kingdom of Arszden, nothing is as it seems. Being one of the oldest of the Fourteen Kingdoms, time has made its history both fact and fairytale, and to this day, nobody knows which is more accurate, either fantasy or reality. Katarina Kasdan was born free, but 321 days ago, her entire world crumbled at her feet. Not for the first time, and surely, not for the last. Stripped of her right to freedom after her entire village was burned to the ground, she was taken as a thrall by the woman known as the Keiserinne, and used for her dark wishes. But her wyrd was long ago settled. When the infamous Steel Kairo walks into her life, everything changes, once more. He is everything she hates. Everything she fears. Everything she loves. He has secrets interwoven with the very birth of the world he seems to carry in his shoulders, holds more power than one should ever be given to wield, and, on top of it all, he is said to be immortal. Something she should have known the first time she tried to stab him. Or when he offered to teach her to throw knives. Or when he kissed her for the first time. But as another king sits on his throne destined to fall, others reach to claim a crown bejeweled with secrets that could mean the unveiling of a long-lost prophecy and a wyrd millennia before settled. And as false kings race to claim an inheritance that is neither theirs nor the king's firstborn, the wyrd wields its hand to place upon the one true heir's head the crown of the Lost King. And amid such secrets lies a fate that claims that these two will be the bane of each other's existence until the blood of one of them is shed upon a land of daisies. Thus, chaos will come. Lives will be lost. Bonds will be made. Vows will be broken. Blood will be spilled. Fates will be set. And war will be waged. And the only remaining question is whether steel will be broken or a daisy will blossom. (Norse mythology and Viking inspired)