Darkmoor is dead. His work is not.After surviving the mountain and learning the truth behind the hunt for Aurix, Rowan and his companions return to Greybank wounded, exhausted, and carrying something far more dangerous than a dragon's treasure: a fragment of Darkmoor's hidden text.Within its damaged pages lies evidence that his pursuit of immortality was only part of something larger. Four ancient marks-shell, bone, blood, and flame-point toward forgotten bloodlines, forbidden death-work, and a design that reaches far beyond one necromancer's ambition. But the meaning of the final mark has been deliberately erased, and someone is willing to kill to keep it hidden.Greybank is no longer the refuge they remember. False warnings have turned the village against them. A murdered scribe leaves behind a trail of altered records, secret orders, and the sigil of the Bone Crown. Every answer draws the company deeper into a network of sealed roads, vanished witnesses, ruined settlements, and officials who command through fear.Rowan must hold the group together while his own past closes in around him. Sylwen faces the loss of the weapon that once defined her. Bromm fights through wounds he can no longer dismiss. Nim's sharp eyes and quicker hands become essential as locks, ledgers, and lies stand between them and the truth. Caelan, carrying the remains of Darkmoor's work, must confront rites that challenge everything he has sworn to keep contained.Then Maelric Voss enters the hunt.Known as the Crown-Lord of the Bone Crown, Voss does not need Darkmoor's power to be dangerous. He has soldiers, authority, and a talent for turning obedience into a weapon. To survive him, the companions must uncover what the Fourth Mark means before the Bone Crown claims it-and before the buried work beneath the old roads is awakened.The dragon was never the greatest threat.The Fourth Mark is the second book in the Ashes of the Gilded Sky series, an adult dark-fantasy adventure filled with ancient secrets, dangerous death-work, fractured loyalties, grim humor, and a battle against those who would make immortality from the lives of others.
