The Warden's Oath

Vesper Voss broke her Guardian's oath four years ago to save a child's life, and has spent every day since paying for a crime everyone assumes she committed alone. When a Convocation liaison arrives asking questions no one else was brave enough to ask, she finally gets the chance to prove what actually happened. She doesn't expect to fall for the man doing the asking. Teiran has spent three years learning to trust his own judgment instead of simply following orders, and everything about the disgraced Guardian assigned as his escort tells him the official story doesn't add up. The deeper they dig, the more they uncover: a stolen weapon capable of turning a single grudge into a Territory-wide catastrophe, and a man patient enough to have waited three centuries to use it. As the investigation pulls them across contested ground and into the path of a threat neither Flight is prepared for, the wary partnership between them becomes something neither can walk away from. But some oaths cost everything to keep, and redemption, once offered, has to be chosen again every single day it's tested. A slow-burn, fated-mates romance with teeth: institutional betrayal, a morally complex antagonist offered mercy he isn't sure he deserves, and a heroine who refuses to disappear quietly.