Freedom has taken Laelyah far from Cindhaëm, yet its hold on her life remains painfully real. In Ascaron: Ad Vocatus, Part 1, Author Lee J. Pleimelding sends a survivor across a perilous fantasy world in search of a cure, a place to belong, and the chance to decide her own future.
A Secret Beneath Her Skin
Laelyah has spent seven years living with the aftermath of Cindhaëm. Months after escaping her captors, she moves through Ascaron under borrowed names and accepts dangerous escort contracts. Each job brings her closer to the twenty gold pieces she needs to reach a healer deep in the forests of the Edeniths.
Time matters. Black veins are spreading beneath her skin after she removed a mark she was never meant to survive removing. She has no clear answer for what’s happening to her body. In a world where people believed to be corrupted can be executed, seeking help also means risking discovery.
That threat gives Laelyah’s travels an uneasy rhythm. Every new place offers the possibility of work, while every encounter requires her to judge how much she can reveal. Her ability to survive depends on skills she has developed through hardship, and those same habits make trust difficult. The search for gold is urgent, yet the deeper question follows her from one contract to the next: what kind of life can she build while fear still shapes her choices?
The premise gives readers several reasons to keep turning pages. There’s the immediate mystery of the black veins, the danger surrounding the healer’s location, and the lingering influence of Cindhaëm. Through it all, Laelyah remains the story’s center. Her decisions carry the weight of someone who has fought hard to reclaim control of her life.
Old Bonds and New Dangers
Laelyah’s return to Althenaum brings her face to face with Erdogan, a friend she believed she had lost. He barely recognizes the woman she has become. Their reunion offers a fragile opening for connection, along with the difficulty of explaining years of pain that Laelyah has learned to keep hidden.
Their path also crosses with Blaise, a disgraced Valkh whose body has begun showing signs of corruption following his involvement with a stolen royal artifact. His condition raises questions that reach beyond Laelyah’s own search for treatment. As the three move through a world shaped by dangerous magic and political tensions, their reasons for helping one another become part of the story’s intrigue.
Cindhaëm’s influence resurfaces through kidnappings, violence, and political silence. Laelyah must confront the possibility that powerful people know more about her disappearance than they’ve admitted. The search for a healer gradually draws her toward secrets she had hoped to leave behind.
Lee builds the novel around choices with personal consequences. Protection can create obligations. Loyalty asks people to take risks. Even a well-meant offer of help can feel complicated to someone whose freedom was once taken away. These tensions give the developing bonds among the characters room to feel uncertain and meaningful.
Readers drawn to adult dark fantasy will find a story with adventure, mystery, body horror, and morally complicated characters. Beneath those elements runs a personal thread: Laelyah wants to survive what was done to her and discover who she can become now.
About the Author
Lee is a French author and longtime storyteller who began writing at a young age through personal stories and fanfiction. An intensely discouraging critique during high school led Lee to step away from serious writing for several years. Eventually, the desire to tell stories brought Lee back.
Ascaron became the project that renewed that commitment. Lee spent years developing its countries, cultures, political systems, mythology, and characters while writing and rewriting the story. Ascaron: Ad Vocatus, Part 1 is being independently published through Amazon KDP and is available in a Kindle edition. It opens a larger planned story set in the world Lee has built.
Where the Journey Leads
Laelyah’s pursuit of a cure gives this first installment a clear, urgent path, while her reunion with Erdogan and her encounter with Blaise widen the possibilities ahead. Ascaron: Ad Vocatus, Part 1 invites readers into a dark world where freedom has a cost, trust takes courage, and a survivor’s future is still hers to shape.