Six Scorched Roses is the book 1.5 in Carissa Broadbent’s Crowns of Nyaxia series — a standalone novella set in the same dark fantasy world as The Serpent and the Wings of Night. It is a short book, but it earns every page. Here is what happens.
*The First Rose. Lilith arrives at Vale’s gate with a black rose.*Six Scorched Roses at a glance
🌶️ Spice Level ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ For a novella it delivers. The tension between Lilith and Vale builds slowly and quietly over six visits and when it finally breaks it feels completely earned. Broadbent knows how to make restraint work in her favour.
💕 Romance Level ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is one of the most quietly devastating romances in the entire Crowns of Nyaxia universe. Six visits, daily letters, long nights in a library — Broadbent builds an entire love story out of small moments and it hits harder than books three times its length.
✨ Magic Level ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ The divine bargain mechanics and Vitarus’s arrival are genuinely eerie and well-realised. The magic here is quieter and more mythological than in the main series but it fits the tone of this smaller, more intimate story perfectly.
💔 Angst Level ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A dying woman racing against time to save her town, a vampire carrying the guilt of an entire defeated people, and a love story neither of them believes they deserve. This novella is small in length and enormous in heartbreak.
🗡️ Action Level ⭐⭐☆☆☆ This is not an action-driven story. The confrontation at Vale’s mansion is intense and the Vitarus scene is breathtaking but the real drama here is internal. Come for the feelings, not the fight scenes.
🌍 World-building ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ The White Pantheon, Vitarus, the divine bargain system, and glimpses of Obitraes add rich texture to the Crowns of Nyaxia world. This novella quietly expands the universe in ways that make the main series feel even deeper.
📚 Standalone-ability ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ You can read this without having finished the main series and it works as its own complete story. That said, readers familiar with the world of Nyaxia will get significantly more out of the lore and context. Best enjoyed between books one and two.
Oliwia’s take: Six Scorched Roses is the kind of novella that makes you furious it isn’t a full-length novel. Broadbent distils everything she does best (slow burn, grief, impossible choices, love built in stolen moments) into something compact and completely devastating. Lilith is a protagonist who earns your whole heart within the first few pages and Vale is exactly the kind of quiet, wounded love interest that ruins you. The structure of six visits, six roses, six chances to turn back, is so elegant. Lilith waking up as a vampire with time finally on her side, handing Vale that last crumbling rose.. is one of the most quietly perfect moments in this entire universe. Do not skip this one thinking it’s just a novella. It will stay with you.
Fair warning: This is a FULL SPOILER RECAP of the nevella. If you haven’t read it yet, turn back now unless you’re ready for all the major twists and reveals!
Six Scorched Roses Book Recap – Book 1.5 in Crowns of Nyaxia Series
A Dying Woman and a Reclusive Vampire
Lilith is a terminally ill scientist from the plague-ravaged town of Adcova. The plague was set in motion by a deal her father made with Vitarus, the god of abundance — he traded the lives of his town for fertile soil and extra time for his dying daughter. Determined to save her people and her sister Mina, Lilith strikes her own bargain with Vale, a reclusive vampire living outside town: she will bring him one black rose per visit in exchange for vials of his blood, which she believes can be distilled into a cure.
Six Roses, Six Visits
Over six months and six visits, Lilith and Vale develop an unlikely bond. She draws his blood, studies it obsessively, and the two spend long nights working through his vast library of Obitraen texts. Vale, a former general of the House of Night who fled after overseeing his people’s defeat, finds himself drawn into both her research and her company. A correspondence of daily letters deepens into something neither of them names. He is the first person Lilith has ever communicated with effortlessly.
Everything Falls Apart at Once
The situation unravels when Thomassen, the town priest, grows suspicious and leads two dozen men to Vale’s mansion to sacrifice him to Vitarus. Lilith rides to stop them, injects Mina with the still-untested cure before leaving, and arrives to find Vale badly burned and on his knees. She kills Thomassen. Vale kills the rest. The battle’s divine consequence is immediate — Vale, a child of Nyaxia, has murdered an acolyte of the White Pantheon. As they tend each other’s wounds, Vale tells her he has decided to return to Obitraes. Lilith tells him she is dying. He says he will take whatever she chooses to give. They spend the night together.
Lilith arrives too late, finds Vale burned to his knees.---
The God’s Price
At dawn, the sky over Adcova warps — Vitarus is coming. Lilith sends Vale away and rides home to face the god herself. She finds Mina alive and standing in the rose fields — the cure worked. Vitarus descends. Lilith makes a deal: she will give back everything her father traded — soil, flowers, and herself — in exchange for lifting the plague. Vitarus seals it with a kiss that strips fifteen years of borrowed life from her body. She collapses dying. Vale, who did not leave, swoops down and Turns her, feeding her his blood and asking if she wants to live. She says yes.
Vitarus seals the bargain with a kiss.---
The Sixth Rose
Lilith wakes weeks later on the coast of Pikov, now a vampire. She does not regret it — the thing that overwhelms her is time, endless and hers at last. Vale tells her Adcova is free and the cure is working. Mina arrives, healthy and radiant, and the sisters finally understand each other without words. When Mina leaves, Lilith gives Vale the sixth and final rose — a crumbling, disintegrating husk. Their deal is done. Vale asks her to come with him to Obitraes, to the House of Night, to a war he doesn’t know the outcome of. She says yes without hesitation.
Interested in the universe? Check our book recap for The Ashes & The Start -Cursed King, Book 2 in the Crowns of Nyaxia series.
Books in the Crowns of Nyaxia Series:
