Illuminator (Gods of Tintar, #1.5)

Helena Tefraine was abducted from her homeland alongside her teenage daughter, her two closest friends, and other women who were in the wrong chapel at the wrong time. She finds herself in Tintar, the only known country in her world where magic exists. Forced into service as a muralist for a foreign king and bound by an arranged betrothal she did not choose, Helena must also unearth buried parts of herself as she perseveres. Her new role does not just challenge her—it awakens her. As she adapts her old life's skills as an illuminator to paint an enemy's throne room, she begins to recover the divine spark within her that refused to be extinguished. A poetic return to the friendship, magic, and romance of Priestess, Illuminator is a companion novel written as a love letter to readers. This is not only a story of survival—it is a story of the soul.