Dawn Must Follow Night

Cavaar is a nine-year-old street urchin trying to survive. When the city guard catches him and throws him in the dungeon for stealing a loaf of bread, a man visits and offers to take him to a castle where all his needs will be provided for. Cavaar has no choice but to go with him.

When he arrives he meets other young students training to fight terrible beasts that the man insists will come from the Black. Cavaar's habits born from looking out for himself before all others make it difficult for him to adjust to life at the castle, but it becomes even harder when he learns that the secrets hidden there threaten not only his life, but the entire realm.

Alera is a twenty-year-old noblewoman longing for a life of freedom from her abusive father. He sees her as a token to gain a political alliance through marriage, but she wants more from life. While others in the castle sleep, she spends her time as an outlaw, hiring a group of cutthroats and robbing rich travelers on the roads of her father's land. When she discovers evidence that a neighboring lord has plans to conquer the realm, she must choose between her father's wishes and her own.

Alera and Cavaar's paths might never have crossed, but when the ambitious lord attacks the castle where Cavaar is training, just as the man's promises about the Black come to fruition, a violent series of events is triggered that sweeps Cavaar and Alera and those alongside them into a war with an unexpected outcome.

Set on a planet that rotates once per year, Dawn Must Follow Night is the first novel in an original character driven fantasy series about confronting darkness within and without.