The Orphan's King (The Orphan's Code)

Legends rise from nothing-but living in their shadow can be just as deadly.

Kayo's brother Liam clawed his way out of the gutters with fire in his blood and fury in his chest. He escaped parents who treated him like a slave, an orphanage that caged him, and a city that turned its back. From nothing, he became a vigilante who punished the corrupt, defied the king, and gave the forgotten something to believe in.

They crowned him the Beggar's King.

Now he's gone.

And the weight of his legend presses down on the city he left behind. The outcasts want a symbol. The poor want a savior. The king wants his memory erased. Kayo wants none of it. He comes from less than nothing, and he refuses to step into his brother's shadow.

So the legacy looks elsewhere...

She never had a name. Or a home. Survival was enough-until she crosses paths with the remnants of the Beggar's King's network, people still fighting in Liam's name. Desperate for someone willing to act where Kayo will not, they offer her a place in their cause. They give her a name-Rose-and with it, a role in a rebellion already moving without him.

The girl she was would have taken what she needed and vanished. But this time, survival means choosing sides. As the crown's grip tightens and the city edges toward open revolt, Rose sees a chance to protect the fragile hope Liam left behind-and to become something Kayo refuses to be.

In a city where crowns are built on suffering and legends are paid for in blood, Kayo and Rose stand on opposite sides of the same inheritance. And both must decide what it will cost them to let a legend live-or finally die.

C.R.R. Hillin (she/they) is from Beaumont, Texas and Austin, Texas, but now lives in Bavaria, Germany, where she pretends she isn't three alligators in a trench coat. Originally pursuing a career in medicine, she took a detour into childcare and social work, got kicked out of therapist school, taught science and ELAR, and then ditched all of that to pick up graphic design and disability/queer advocacy. As a proud AuDHD she picks up skills and hobbies all over the place, usually book-related, and is now proficient at digital art, cover design, graphic design, audio and video editing, video game writing, languages (Spanish, Italian, German, French), Tae Kwon Do, and a dozen different softwares as well as writing. Her toxic trait is painstakingly researching any and all things pre-1600 A.D instead of working and then ditching it all to write fanfic instead. She's destined to die petting something she shouldn't. Probably a polar bear, but her husband's cat Weasel is definitely plotting something.