We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The River She Became by Emily Varga, a high-stakes, action-packed young adult romantasy out from Wednesday Books on June 30th.
Yaseema is a brilliant scholar and loyal servant of the Empire—or so they think. By day, she catalogs the fae relics of her conquered kingdom. But by night, she reclaims the artefacts in secret to restore magic to her dying land.
Until she finds the long lost key to cross the River into the fae world and save her people. But a ruthless realm awaits her there, ruled by monsters wearing beautiful skin—especially the cold-eyed captain who sees through her lies. But even he isn’t what he seems—under the guise of upholding a cruel regime, he works to overthrow it from the inside. To succeed, he needs the same lost relic Yaseema seeks: the crown of an ancient Fae Queen.
With magic that is a mystery even to her, Yaseema can help him find the crown and save his family from a fate worse than death. Unless she steals it first to help her own.
To survive, they must work together to outwit ancient curses, battle creatures born of nightmares, and find a power that could resurrect their worlds. But as secrets unravel and loyalties blur, they face the greatest danger of all: losing their heart to each other.
Buy the Book
The River She Became
The River She Became
Buy this book from:
The gold key was cold against my chest, alongside my sister’s ring, reminding of what I needed to focus on.
But something about the way the girl had lured the beast away from the zulmi woman stopped me from leaving her. I’d spent too long killing and torturing peris for the Viceroy.
Seeing someone save a life felt novel.
Perhaps helping an incredibly idiotic girl in the woods escape the creature would balance some of my sins.
My hands itched to fight the beast. It had been a long time since I’d been engaged in a fight where I didn’t have one hand tied behind my back or wasn’t enacting the orders of the Court of Salt.
I took a step forward as the girl pushed away from the boulder, at last realizing that the wolf might figure out she wasn’t in the tree anymore. She began walking backward, edging away from the tree she’d climbed, keeping her eye on the direction of the beast. It was a good plan, but she still wouldn’t escape.
She was a few feet from me, not realizing that I was behind her, standing in the shadows of the forest. I waited until she pressed herself against me, feeling the shock flood through her body as I wrapped my arm around her stomach to prevent her from bolting and my hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. She struggled, but if she alerted the wolf to our location now, it would be much more difficult.
She smelled… different.
Like mangoes, and dusty parchment, and spilled ink. There was something decidedly un-peri about her. I lifted my hand from her stomach to pull back her hair. I sucked in a breath at the sight of her rounded ear.
Human.
How could that be? A human this far east and outside of the Salt Court? The girl didn’t seem to be enthralled, but it was sometimes difficult to tell.
She’d stiffened when I’d pulled back her hair and made another muffled scream into my hand. Irritation rose up in my chest.
She was going to get us both killed.
“Don’t. Make. A. Sound,” I said, my voice a low rumble as I glanced over at the wolf by the tree.
“Do you understand?”
She nodded against my hand, and I released her, drawing the dagger at my waist in case the beast heard us. At the very least, I wanted to be prepared. The girl turned to face me, and I blinked. I hadn’t seen many humans—the few we had in River had been brought from Salt from before the time of the wall, enthralled by peris who were amused by how malleable they were. They were usually frail, their skin drained of color, hair flat and oily, eyes glazed over.
But this girl’s hair was dark and enormous, a riot of curls the color of deep tree bark, a heavy storm cloud behind her. Her eyes were just as big, and on her nose sat a gold contraption, which she kept nervously pushing up as she looked at me.
They suited her, even if it was impractical to be wearing something over your eyes while running through the forest away from a giant wolf.
She looked… alive.
Vibrant. Warm. Like a golden flower in the middle of a desolate wasteland.
“Who are you?” the girl demanded, her hands planting on her hips, the anger in her voice and blatant disregard for my command that she stay silent causing my own temper to flare up.
It seemed the flower had thorns.
I smiled at her, knowing it was not a reassuring one. I didn’t have to be here; I could let her get torn to shreds by a beast bigger than a tree and not bother myself with any of this.
“I’m the one who’s going to save your life.”
Excerpted from The River She Became, copyright © 2026 by Emily Varga.
