The Names We Burn

In a city where the Crown owns more than your loyalty, it owns your name. Mara Vey has built her life around breaking that rule. As an outlaw known for burning the magical bindings that tie citizens to the Crown, Mara offers people something the law has made nearly impossible: freedom. But every name she destroys leaves something behind inside her—a memory, a fear, a fragment of another life she was never meant to carry. Then a dangerous job forces her into an alliance with a Crown Warden who should be her enemy. He has no bindable name. And no explanation for why. Their search for answers leads beneath the city, into the buried machinery of an ancient system the Crown was never meant to control. What began as a rebellion against stolen identities becomes something far more dangerous: a conspiracy built into the foundations of the kingdom itself. With the city closing in around them and trust becoming harder to separate from desire, Mara must decide how much of herself she is willing to lose to give everyone else the chance to choose who they are. Because when the final bells ring, every citizen will face the same choice: Speak the name the Crown gave them— or claim one of their own. The Names We Burn is a darkly atmospheric romantic fantasy filled with forbidden magic, political intrigue, dangerous secrets, slow-burn tension, and a fight for the one thing no ruler should be able to own: identity.