Sixteen-year-old Bren Taylor doesn't believe in heroes. Not anymore. His parents are dead, the world is carved up by powers bound to ability books, and loyalty is just another word for weakness. He's bitter, ruthless, and dangerous?and he intends to stay that way.

But everything changes the night he inherits a blood-stained journal. The moment he opens it, a system no one has ever seen awakens inside him. Not the familiar abilities of fire or steel, but something darker. Something older. The Demon's Ledger.

The Ledger doesn't grant him power for free. It whispers bargains. It demands refusal. It carves laws into his bones, etching promises he cannot break without bleeding for them. With every command he writes, Bren feels the world itself twist to obey?and himself twisting with it. His name grows heavy, his reflection strange, and his circle of allies smaller than ever.

Yet the academy where he's been sent to train has its own secrets. Chalk lines that move when no one's looking. A wall that breathes. Voices that call to boys in the dead of night, offering them the sound of loved ones long gone. It is here Bren must decide: protect those few he dares to call his friends, or surrender them to the Choir?the enemy that feeds on law, voice, and memory.

With his circle at his side?Owen, the boy marked by refusal; Sil, who obeys only Bren; Lena, Marcus, Nora, and Isolde, bound by grit and distrust?Bren learns the truth: the Choir is only the first voice. Beneath the city, deeper songs stir, waiting for someone reckless enough to answer.

Bren has already said yes once. He may not survive saying it again.

Brutal, unflinching, and relentless, The Demon's Ledger: Blood and Ash is Book One of J.C. England's new dark progression fantasy series, where every choice is a weapon, every law carries a cost, and survival demands sacrifice of body, soul, and name.