The Cartographer’s War

She trades memories for magic. He carries the screams of every map-mage he murdered. Together, they’re the kingdom’s only hope—and each other’s destruction.

Sable Blackwood has spent ten years hiding in a cellar, drawing forbidden maps with silver ink that devours her past. When Prince Cassian Valdris—the Butcher Prince who hanged her teacher and outlawed her gift—discovers her secret, she expects death. Instead, he offers a deal: map the cursed archipelago that holds the key to breaking his curse, and earn the pardon that could set her people free.

But the islands don’t give up their secrets cheaply. Each map Sable draws demands a steeper price—her mother’s laugh, her father’s face, her very identity—while the prince she swore to hate proves to be the only anchor keeping her from losing herself entirely. As storms of living magic and islands that whisper secrets test their fragile alliance, Sable discovers the terrible truth: Cassian’s curse forces him to feel every sacrifice she’s making. Every memory she trades, he suffers. Every piece of her soul she sells, he bleeds for.
Falling for the Butcher Prince wasn’t part of the plan. Neither was learning that breaking his curse might destroy the only weapon that can save her dying magic. Now Sable must choose: save the man she’s learning to love and lose her gift forever, or keep her power and watch him become the monster the kingdom already believes him to be.

In a world where magic demands sacrifice and love demands more, the greatest map ever drawn might be the one that leads two broken souls home.

A standalone romantasy epic about the price of power, the redemption of monsters, and finding forever in the last place you look.