The Assassin's Curse Universe  ·  34+ Books

Dark Courts.
Forbidden Blades.
Cursed Love.

✦

DF Blackmoor

She was sent to kill him. He was cursed to destroy everything he loved. Neither of them was told what the prophecy actually said.

Dark Romantasy Fae Courts Enemies to Lovers Prophecy & Conspiracy
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DF Blackmoor · Iron Wolf Press
The Assassin's Curse · Book I
The Assassin's
Curse
// Iron Wolf Press
DF Blackmoor

Book One · The Assassin's Curse

She was made to be a weapon.
The Winter Court was the target.

Mara has exactly one identity: the Crimson Guild's most lethal operative, raised since childhood to be a weapon against the fae. Her new assignment is straightforward — infiltrate the Winter Court as a servant and assassinate the cursed Prince Kieran. The Guild has been planning this for years. The prophecy demands it. The Grandmaster is certain.

What the Guild didn't tell her: Kieran's curse isn't what they said it is. The half-blood bride prophecy doesn't mean what they told her it means. And the Guild compulsion spell woven into her blood since birth — the one designed to force her to complete the kill regardless of her own wishes — is the only reason she might still do it.

"She came to the Winter Court with a dagger and a lie. She left with neither — and something far more dangerous in their place."

The Winter Court is beautiful and lethal in equal measure: frost flowers that bloom only in Kieran's presence, shadows that writhe when his curse flares, a prince who plays an ice flute in the dark because it's the only magic he fully controls. Mara was trained to see fae as monsters. She was not trained for what happens when a monster looks like grief.

The Assassin's Curse is the first book in a four-book main series — and the anchor title of The Assassin's Curse Universe, a world spanning nine interconnected storylines and 34+ books across multiple series.

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Court Intelligence File
  • TitleThe Assassin's Curse
  • AuthorDF Blackmoor
  • SeriesThe Assassin's Curse · Book I
  • GenreDark Romantasy
  • TropesEnemies to Lovers, Fae Court, Dual POV
  • ToneDark · Seductive · Tense
  • Structure4-Book Main Series
  • Universe34+ Books · 9 Storylines
  • PublisherIron Wolf Press
  • StatusComing Soon
The Four Books
Book I The Assassin's Curse
Book II The Sovereign's Shadow
Book III The Eternal Crown
Book IV The Dreamless Crown
Writing Progress · Book I
I  ·  Outline Complete ✦
II  ·  First Draft 100%  ·  Complete ✦
III  ·  Revision Pass 70%  ·  7 / 10 Chapters

The Full Scope

The Assassin's Curse Universe

One world. Nine interconnected storylines. 34+ books. Characters whose fates collide across time, courts, and realms — from the days before the Winter Court's curse to the dream realm that exists beyond death itself.

I
Main Series · 4 Books

The Assassin's Curse

Mara & Kieran · Books I – IV

The central story. An assassin sent to kill a cursed prince. A compulsion spell woven into her blood. A prophecy no faction has interpreted correctly. The main arc follows Mara and Kieran from enemies through the transformation of the dream realm, across four books that escalate from court intrigue to a fate that transcends realms entirely.

Read the Debut
II
Pre-Series · 3 Books

The Winter Prince's Curse

Kieran & Lyssa · Before Book I

Before Mara. Before the assassination mission. King Aldric is dying, and Prince Kieran's magic is destroying everything he touches. Lyssa of the Autumn Court arrives as a diplomatic healer — and the soul bond that forms between them will still be trembling through the court when Mara walks through its gates.

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III
Concurrent Series

The Crimson Guild

Guild Internal · During Main Series

What happens inside the Guild while Mara is in the Winter Court. The operative who trained her. The Grandmaster's true agenda. The faction within the Guild who know the prophecy's real meaning and are quietly working to ensure it never surfaces. A series for readers who want to know what Mara didn't.

Coming Soon
IV
Post-Series · 3 Books

The Dream Realm Chronicles

Ten Years After · New Threats

A decade after Mara and Kieran's bodies fully crystallized into the dream realm. Their sanctuary exists — but dream realm politics are neither simple nor safe. New threats emerge in the transformed mortal and fae worlds. The next generation inherits a realm that still doesn't fully understand what was sacrificed to save it.

Coming Soon
V–IX
Five More Storylines

Further Storylines

Other Courts · Other Characters

Five more interconnected storylines exploring the other fae courts, the mortal realm's perspective on the events of the main series, the Unseelie King Malachai's true history, the next generation of prophesied figures, and the ancient forces that set the curse in motion long before Mara was born.

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34+ Books Planned
9 Storylines
4 Main Series Books
∞ Interconnected Fates

The Players

Those the Prophecy Chose

Crimson Guild · Half-Blood Operative
Mara
Protagonist

Raised by the Crimson Guild since before she can remember. Five kills recorded. Perfect technique. Psychological conditioning so thorough she braids and rebraids her hair during intelligence reviews without realizing she's doing it — one of the last signs of the human being they didn't quite manage to eliminate. Her assignment to the Winter Court is the Guild's most important operation in a generation. Her fae blood — the half-blood heritage the Guild has been feeding and monitoring since her infancy — is not a coincidence. Neither is the compulsion spell woven into her bloodline that will force her hand if she hesitates too long.

Winter Court · Cursed Heir
Prince Kieran
Love Interest

The curse manifests as uncontrolled frost — spreading through everything he touches, writhing shadows during his nightmares, destruction that follows the emotions he can no longer suppress. He plays an ice flute alone in the dark because it is the only magic he fully controls. His father is dying. His court is watching. The Unseelie King is circling. And somewhere in the servant hierarchy, someone arrived three weeks ago who watches him with eyes that are very carefully blank. He doesn't know what she is. He does not know the Guild wove a kill order into her blood. He will wish, later, that knowing had come sooner.

Autumn Court · Healer
Lyssa
Ally

Sent from the Autumn Court to stabilize Kieran's magic through touch and song. The soul bond that formed between them is genuine — and entirely insufficient to stop what the Guild set in motion. Her presence at the Winter Court complicates Mara's mission in ways neither the Guild nor Mara anticipated.

Crimson Guild · Leadership
The Grandmaster
Antagonist

Cold, calculating, and aware of far more than he shares with Mara. He engineered her existence as a weapon. He knows about her fae blood — it was not an accident. His pale eyes suggest layers even his senior operatives have never accessed. The prophecy he gave Mara is not the only interpretation. It may not even be the real one.

Unseelie Court · Shadow Throne
Malachai
True Villain

The Unseelie King. Rarely seen. Everywhere felt. His pact with an ancient being predates the Winter Court's curse by centuries, and the events unfolding in the Winter Court are precisely what he has been maneuvering toward. He is not the villain of the story. He is the reason the story exists.

Lore & World

The Courts & Their Secrets

❄
The Winter Court
Kieran's Realm

A court of crystalline spires, frost gardens where only cursed flowers bloom, and a prince whose magic is corroding from within. Beautiful and dangerous in the exact same proportions. Court politics run on paranoia — every noble house is measuring the distance between Kieran's instability and the Unseelie King's patience.

⚔
The Crimson Guild
Mara's Origin

A secret military organization that raises children as weapons against the fae. Hierarchical, ideologically ruthless, self-financed by operations the government no longer tracks. Its archives contain centuries of anti-fae intelligence — and selective propaganda so well-made that most operatives never think to question what they've been told.

✦
The Half-Blood Prophecy
The Fulcrum of Everything

"A half-blood bride who will either save or destroy the Winter Court." Three factions have interpreted this prophecy. All three interpretations lead to different actions. At least two of them are wrong. The prophecy was designed to be self-fulfilling under specific conditions — and those conditions were arranged deliberately, long before Mara was born.

DF Blackmoor
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The Author

DF Blackmoor

DF Blackmoor writes dark romantasy — worlds of forbidden courts, cursed bloodlines, and love that arrives wrapped in blades. Stories where the enemies-to-lovers tension is real because the enemies part was also real. Where the fae are genuinely dangerous. Where prophecy is a trap set by someone who understood exactly how people respond to being told their fate.

The Assassin's Curse Universe began with a single question: what if an assassin was engineered from birth to be the weapon in a prophecy — and the person who engineered her was not the person she was told to kill? The answer became four main series books, nine storylines, and a world that keeps expanding the further you pull on its threads.

DF Blackmoor is a pen name published through Iron Wolf Press — an independent publishing house committed to fiction that earns every emotional beat it delivers and respects the intelligence of dark romantasy readers.

34+ Books Planned
9 Storylines
4 Main Series
∞ Interconnected Fates