Adept of Shadows: The Imperial Adept Interlude

by Nathan Tudor

Secrets are deadly. Destiny is absolute.

Sharasthi will do anything to avenge her grandfather's murder—even infiltrate the Lazarran Empire for the Order of the Sleeping Dragon.

But while her shadow magic and spycraft can handle cults and rebels, they can't save her from the Darkness calling to her soul. Only light-weaving Adept Alyat offers refuge—yet love might be the weakness she could never afford.

When her thirst for vengeance and the needs of her heart are at odds, Sharasthi must make an impossible choice...or has fate already chosen for her?

Uncover the origins of the Night-cloaked Witch in ADEPT OF SHADOWS.

410 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 21, 2025

About the author

Nathan Tudor has researched ancient religion at Oxford, traveled the seven continents, and mastered the art of speaking in the third person. His debut novel The Empire’s Lion tells an epic story filled with action, identity, and the struggle to do what is right in an upside-down world.

Despite the best efforts of several well-meaning but misguided voices to convince him what constitutes “real literature” (structurally, we might call these the antagonists), Nathan always loved fantasy stories. Growing up on J.R.R. Tolkien and ancient mythology, he understood at a deep, intuitive level that these stories mattered—perhaps in a cosmic sense (they certainly spoke about cosmic matters, at least).

As he read wider and deeper, he recognized time and again how fantasy delves to the mythic heart of the human imagination, recapturing and retelling the same truths, ideals, and desires that animate our most foundational stories—from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Iliad to Paradise Lost to Lord of the Rings. Nathan strives to tell stories that partake of the archetypal and symbolic visions that have always inspired and instructed the human spirit.

Nathan’s academic career in religious studies (with a particular focus on the ancient Near East and Greco-Roman antiquity) informs much of his fiction. The high point of his studies was researching an obscure Dead Sea Scrolls text at the University of Oxford, and though he is now on the Pacific coast, the ideas sparked by that project continue to manifest in his writing.

His most prominent influences include Guy Gavriel Kay, Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, Steven Erikson, and Gene Wolfe. Beyond the realms of fantasy, GK Chesterton, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mircea Eliade, William Blake, and Steven Pressfield—just to name a few—have all left their mark.

When he’s not writing or reading, Nathan can be found debating matters of no particular consequence with his friends, falling down research rabbit holes, and fiddling with a hand-crank coffee grinder that’s been stuck for the last few months.

Allegations that he hired an alchemist to give him the tread of a cat and the ears of a fox are categorically false.

Reviews

[Abbie McGhee]

This felt like Tudor’s most ambitious book yet. Romance, revenge, ethereal supernatural encounters — this book has them all. Sharasthi’s story explores the cost of keeping secrets from those you love for the sake of those you loved. Light and Shadow are overtly used in the exploration of these themes, but still felt fresh in Tudor’s captivating prose.


There were a few parts that I re-read because I didn’t feel like on my first pass I fully understood what was going on. About halfway through the book, I realized I didn’t really understand why the Parthavans killed Sharasthi’s grandfather. Then again, during the scene where Sharasthi met the Parthavan deities and learns about the spirit that is bound to her, it felt a bit difficult to piece together the full meaning of that scene.

I really loved the interactions between Sharasthi and Lylah in the later half of the book. It was a unique way to show Sharasthi’s thoughts as she continued to turn inwards and away from those who wanted to bring her out from her secrets.


The plot recap at the beginning was nice, but I felt like my experience of the book would have been improved if the intricacies of the The Empire’s Lion and Adept Initiate had been fresher in my mind. When Book 2 comes out I’ll probably be rereading everything again.

[Maggie Hime]

Intrigue, romance, battlefields, theology: this book has it all and then some. It’s been a few years since I read Adept Initiate and The Empire’s Lion but picking up Adept of Shadows whisked me back to Lazarra as if I’d never left. There’s a charitable recap at the start of the book, so although I’d strongly recommend reading the first two installments, it’s not necessary to have them fresh in your mind.
Sharasthi is intense, complex, compelling… inhabiting her pov was a thrill and I dearly hope to return to it in the sequels to The Empire’s Lion. The world-building is clever and engaging as ever and I enjoyed venturing into the Zarushan territory & worldview. The plot thickens and then thickens AGAIN. At its heart the story is a rich and provoking exploration of mortality, truth, and the cost of bearing it. I’m eager to wonder and wander through it again soon.