The Ledger and the Blade
Ink and Iron cover — iron shackles dripping ink onto an open ledger, Book One of The Ledger and the Blade
book one of the ledger and the blade

Ink
and
Iron

A noble's daughter who learned to fight in secret. A scribe who never knew his own strength. Bound together by a lie neither of them told.

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Rowan Ashvale · Dark fantasy · Caldreth, a kingdom kept honest by force
the account

Every kingdom keeps two books.

One for what's declared. One for what's owed. In Caldreth, Lord Halvern Draye has spent twenty years balancing the second — in grain, in silence, in the debts men don't know they've taken on. Two people are about to throw off the sum.

What she hides
Sera Ashworn — duke's daughter, promised bride, a name that opens every door in Ashworn Hall.
By night she is Sam, a kitchen boy with a stolen sword and a black eye she can't explain.
She is running out of time to decide which name is the disguise.
What he doesn't know
Corvin Wren — an archive scribe who corrects other men's ledgers and asks for nothing.
A broken half-seal locket and a mother's name, Elena Sorrell, erased from a noble house.
He is about to learn what he was worth all along — and what it will cost him.
principal characters

Two case files. One ledger.

Case File — Ashworn

Sera Ashworn

Duke's daughter by daylight. By the time the market bell rings, she is Sam — a kitchen boy who wins at knucklebones and knows exactly which floorboards tell secrets. She was never meant to hold a sword. She has never wanted anything more.

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Case File — Wren

Corvin Wren

An archive scribe who has spent his life making other men's numbers balance. What he doesn't know is that his mother's name was struck from a noble house, and a broken half-seal locket is the only proof it was ever there at all. Some lies are kept to protect the liar. This one was kept to protect him.

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BOOK TWO
CHAPTER ONE
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The seal is broken. Check your inbox for Chapter One.
Grave and Grain, Book Two of The Ledger and the Blade, by Rowan Ashvale
book two of the ledger and the blade

Grave
and
Grain

Two of Lord Dael's scouts went looking for what Lord Draye left behind. Neither came back. Sera and Wren are about to learn how much further the ledger runs.

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Rowan Ashvale · Dark fantasy · Book Two of The Ledger and the Blade
the account continues

Every debt collects interest.

Nine months after Lord Draye's fall, two of Lord Dael's scouts are missing — last seen asking questions about an iron falcon and a wagon track that shouldn't exist. Sera and Wren go looking for them. What they find is a debt far older than one man's ambition.

What the kingdom buried
Draye's fall was supposed to close the ledger. It only opened a new page.
A network of veterans who came home to nothing has spent twenty years making sure it never happens again.
Two missing scouts found the proof. Now Sera and Wren have to find them.
What it costs this time
Duke Ashworn forbids Sera from going — and won't say why.
Sera goes anyway. For the first time, defying her father means walking straight at the danger he was trying to hide from her.
Some debts aren't paid in coin. This one is paid in names.
principal characters

The same two, in over their heads again.

Case File — Ashworn

Sera Ashworn

Duke's daughter, reconciled with her father, and no longer content to stay behind Ashworn Hall's walls. When Lord Dael's scouts vanish, she and Wren take the case as a rescue — and walk straight into the one danger her father was trying, silently, to keep her from.

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Case File — Wren

Corvin Wren

Still the archive scribe who notices what a document actually means. This time the discrepancy isn't in a ledger — it's a list of names that means nothing to an ordinary reader and everything to anyone with real political or military standing.

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BOOK THREE
CHAPTER ONE
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The seal is broken. Check your inbox for Chapter One.

The ledger is open. Caldreth is waiting.

Ink and Iron and Grave and Grain are live now on Amazon. Shadow and Oath follows.

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