Fugue of Fire: Book Two of the Muses' War Series (Paperback or Softback)

The sky has stopped burning, but the wound in the world hasn't healed.

In the aftermath of the Coronet Peaks, Breheimen is a kingdom trying to convince itself it has recovered. The portal is sealed. The traitor is dead. The Muse-touched artisans who were enslaved have returned to their families. And Eagle's Wing - the thousand-year-old sword of state, the heart of Breheimen's identity - is gone forever.

Muses' War: Fugue of Fire follows three interlocking storylines in the months after that victory.

Dorian Silversong and master smith Ilmarinen Steelhammer set out across the kingdom to forge a successor to Eagle's Wing from aetherstone - material that fell from the sky when the veil was torn and whose properties no one fully understands. Their journey takes them to the mountain halls of Ironmount, the lapidary workshops of Dunheim, and the austere city of Auranhelm, gathering artisans and knowledge as the stakes grow clearer with every stop. Dorian's young apprentice Revan Aethelstan makes costly mistakes, learns expensive lessons, and begins to understand what it means to carry a Muse-touch in a world that suddenly has too many of them.

Meanwhile, in the capital, Praeceptor Phrygian Eobanus nails thirty-five theses to the doors of the Musae Seminarii. His argument is simple and devastating: the Church has kept knowledge of the Musae Tenebris secret for five centuries, and that secrecy is what enabled every catastrophe Breheimen has suffered. The Ecclesiasticum's response is methodical, relentless, and ultimately lethal. His allies - Lydian Gleamingharpe, newly appointed Headmistress of the Collegium Bardica, and Mixie Thornecrest - do what they can. It isn't enough.

And in the Silean baronial embassy, Lady Seraphina Ravenscroft watches her daughter Rosalind deteriorate from a possession she barely understands. When a mysterious figure named Denmor offers her a way to transfer Rosalind's affliction to a stronger host, Seraphina does the math and makes her choice. She has always been the most dangerous person in any room. Now she's about to prove why.

Three voices in counterpoint. A fugue of fire and consequence. The Muses' War is learning to be patient.