FORGED UNITY: The Mirror Kingdoms - Book Four

by Susan Faw

She swallowed three years of grief to keep the coalition alive. Now someone is using that grief to destroy it.

Six months ago, Shadow Queen Seraphine ordered the capture of Queen Isabela of Valdris. Isabela died in Umbraeth custody. Liora rode into the trap set with her mother's body and came out the other side a dual queen, a grieving daughter, and a woman who understood that survival sometimes demands you swallow something unforgivable.

Liora swallowed her grief. She stood beside Seraphine at the coalition table, signed the accords, built the alliance. She even meant it — in the hard practical way of someone who has chosen the future over personal vendetta.But she has not forgiven her. She never said she had.

Now Liora governs Valdris from Sombremar while Callum governs Glenmara from Cairn Dùn, the bond between them stretching thin with distance, When a coalition trade vessel vanishes near the Umbraeth coast with shadow-walker signatures at the scene, months of carefully swallowed grief rises up with nowhere left to go.

Callum believes Umbraeth is being framed. Fifteen-year-old Kari of Cindergarde, running her dead father's intelligence network from the forge city he built, is pulling on threads that suggest he is right. But the conspiracy runs deeper than a missing ship — and whoever is behind it has spent months studying exactly where the alliance is most likely to break, right down the fault line of Liora's grief.

And beneath Forge-Heart, patient, ancient and entirely aware, Azareth watches the fractures spread, waiting for the moment the crack becomes a door.

Forged Unity is the story of a debt six months overdue, a marriage stretched to its limit, and a young queen proving that the most powerful weapon in five kingdoms isn't a shadow, or an ancient seal — it's knowing who to trust.

Book 4 of The Mirror Kingdoms Saga. Best read in order following Splintered Peace.

343 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 15, 2026

About the author

A lover of unusual worlds, Susan is a masked crusader for the fantastical world. Championing mythical rights, she quells uprisings and battles infidels who would slay the lifeblood of her pen. It’s all in a night’s work, for this whirlwind writer. Welcome to the quest.

Dante Rossetti Grand Prize awarded for Best Young Adult Fiction of 2016, Chanticleer Reviews, for Seer of Souls.

First in Category, Dante Rossetti, Best Young Adult Mythology, 2016, Chanticleer Reviews, for Seer of Souls.

First in Category, Dante Rossetti , 2017 Chanticleer Reviews, for Soul Sanctuary

Find out how it all began! You can download the prequel novella to the series for free!

Visit susanfaw.com to download your copy, or copy and paste this link: http://susanfaw.com/

Reviews

[Lana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Queen Liora and King Callum are doing their best to safeguard the alliance they had forged through so much sacrifice, however serving two kingdoms was difficult and made demands on them which forced them apart. With distance their bond weakened, and with each weakness the seal keeping the demon below ground, weakened too. In this book we see Azareth insidioulsy reaching out towards the monarch's triplets, who are just three years old. He ignores Finn, but tempts Morgana, as well as Kaela. The children are all different, and their powers are too, and he is patient enough to study them and lure them to his traps. Meantime the alliance is being threatened and destabilised by those who stood to loose from a peace treaty. Lord Cassian is setting plots against plots and seems to have no conscience to mention. However he did not forsee how the heads of the four kingdoms in the alliance worked so well together to unravel a dire plot before it dismantled all their hard work. This books is amazing in its scope, the planning is intricate, as is the politics behind the plot which really endangers one of the royal siblings. I love how the alliance rally around one another and put the children's well being first. But the darkness below is patient and working stealthily to once again break his seal. Will he be able to manipulate Finn, Morgana and Kaela or will he put a wedge in their unity?

[LooseBoots · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like intense fantasy with lots of action and subterfuge and plenty of magic ,this is the book for you.

Excellent read well worth my time.