Kyra Gregory
Fantasy (No magical or supernatural elements), Alternative World.
3rd Person Limited Narrative and dual point of views.
Part of The Ascendant Series Universe. Completed series with spin-off.
Jared Bricken has been a pirate for most of his life, moving from Deckhand to Quartermaster to Captain by the age of twenty-six. To eliminate the growing threat in their waters, the Evradian kingdom promises pardons to all those who come forward and renounce piracy. Jared can’t forget his reasons for leaving civilisation behind, but, when his crew vote in favour of taking the pardons, he’s forced to conform to the very world he despised.
Kara Sethers is the young wife of an Evradian admiral. Mistreated and always within her husband’s sight, Jared admires her from a distance, captivated by her strength, pained by the humiliation she endures and enraged by societies unwillingness to help her because of who her husband is.
Jared has a choice; take her away and return to a life at sea, proving to the Evradians that he truly is nothing more than the villain that pirates are portrayed as, or live a reformed life on land, his heart forever aching for the woman he cannot have.
Life at sea comes with a number of risks, but, as far as Kara is concerned, they’re risks far more favourable than the horrors she escaped from on land a year ago.
When out-sailing an Evradian ship proves to be impossible, the crew of the Plunderer find themselves on the losing-side of a bloody battle. Slaughtering and sinking them isn’t enough for the Evradians—an example needs to be made on land if they hope to put an end to the pirate threat. As the only one to have successfully evaded capture, Kara is all that’s left to keep the man she loves, as well as the crew she calls her brothers, from hanging from the gallows in three days.
Kara finds herself back on land, all alone, faced with everything she despised and an impossible mission to take the men out of an impenetrable fort. But, a year at sea changed plenty. No longer the helpless young girl the Evradians knew her to be, their failure to account for her could very well be their undoing—and the key to their survival.
It’s been three years since Kara left Evrad for a life in piracy and, what was once a life of freedom, has become complicated by the same politics that turned her to the sea in the first place.
Upon learning of the Evradian King’s demise, Kieren decides to return to land in a bid to sell their cargo for higher profits. Having almost lost Jared the last time they returned, Kara begs them to reconsider taking such an unnecessary risk, only for Jared to go ahead and sell the decision to the rest of the crew.
Caught in the middle of a war for territory, an abrupt evacuation proves to be as catastrophic as Kara first imagined. Faced with some impossible choices, Kieren and Jared’s decisions cause chaos amongst the crew, leaving them suffering losses they may never be able to recover from.
As tensions grow between her and the man she loves, as well as with the crew divided, Kara can’t help but realise that the rest of her life has been cast in doubt—sinking before her very eyes. Desperate times call for desperate allies, and when an enemy makes the offer of an alliance, Kara pushes for them to take it with the hope that it isn’t too late.