The Crownless King

Orvalia, once a kingdom of gilded towers and opulent feasts, now starves under the iron fist of its savior. Five years after blacksmith Eshar led a bloody revolution, his utopia has become a cage. The cobblestones, once slick with noble blood, now glisten with the tears of the hungry.  Lirien Meluan, architect of the revolution and Eshar's confidante, remembers a whispered promise of a kingdom free from fear. Now, they fear Eshar more than any darkness.
From the catacombs beneath the fallen palace, a crown of solidified blood whispers promises of absolute control, preying on Eshar’s deepest fears.  He embraces the relic of Xal’thor, a forgotten god worshipped by blood sacrifice, twisting Orvalia’s faith into a grotesque cult of personality.  Lirien, torn between loyalty and terror, must sever the ties that bind her to the man she once loved and orchestrate a conspiracy against him.  Her allies: Rhys Aerav, a disillusioned scholar, and Elara Dathos, a Whisper, a member of a secretive order devoted to Orvalia's spiritual balance.  But Eshar wields Lirien’s love as a weapon, manipulating her emotions, exploiting her loyalty.
Meanwhile, Kaelen Maris, orphaned by the revolution, becomes an unlikely symbol of defiance, his quiet resistance inspiring an underground movement. He finds a mentor in Elara, who sees in him the pure, untainted connection to the ancestral spirits Eshar seeks to erase.
Unusual weather patterns emerge, the rivers run black, whispers of ancestors turn to anguished cries. The balance is broken, and Xal’thor hungers. Lirien knows confronting Eshar directly is suicide. To sever the crown’s hold, she must enter his mind, a perilous journey that could shatter her sanity.  Elara offers a solution: a ritual using the Whispers’ ancient magic, drawing on the collective memory of the ancestors to shield her.  Kaelen, his spirit untouched by Eshar's corruption, becomes the conduit for their power.
In Eshar's mindscape, a horrifying realm twisted by trauma and the crown's influence, Lirien confronts the spectral god, a being of shadow and whispers.