It’s happening!!!
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Salvation is a cage, and the lock is on the inside.
Five years ago, the world went silent. Now Rivenglade is a miracle in the wasteland—a haven of food, order, and unshakeable faith. At its center stands Lucien Altheris, the Golden Prophet whose light holds back the dark. To the refugees, he is a savior. To the town, he is a king.
To Mira Roehart, he is a jailer.
She has watched her neighbors trade their freedom for safety. She has watched her father surrender his will, and her best friend’s eyes turn bright and empty with devotion. In a town that demands absolute purity, Mira’s doubts are more than sins—they are a danger to everyone she loves.
They told her the dark was dangerous. They lied.
When Lucien decides to claim her—not just as a convert, but as a wife—Mira learns what his “salvation” really costs. Forced into a marriage built on coercion and stripped of her agency, she is pushed to the breaking point. And when the Prophet tries to bind her soul to his light, the ritual goes terribly wrong.
His divinity does not purify her. It recoils.
Mira isn’t just a skeptic. She is immune to Lucien’s power—because something ancient lives in her blood, something the “gods” are afraid of. Now the Prophet is hunting the only thing he cannot control. To survive, Mira must run toward the very darkness she was taught to fear—and decide what she’s willing to become to reclaim her own soul.
He demanded her devotion. He got her darkness.
Author’s Note: This novel contains dark themes, including religious extremism, gaslighting, and detailed depictions of intimate partner violence and sexual assault. It is intended for mature audiences.
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About the Author
Mileena Rayne was raised in a high-control religious environment as a Jehovah's Witness. She left at eighteen—walking away from the only community she had ever known to build a life on her own terms.
Today, she works as an operating room nurse in a Level I trauma center and writes fantasy novels that explore the territories she knows intimately: survival, autonomy, religious control, and the long road to reclaiming a self that others tried to erase. Her work draws from lived experience, transforming personal history into myth and offering a mirror to readers who have survived their own cages.
She lives in Minnesota with her two daughters, where she continues to build the life she was once told she could never have.
The Chosen is her second novel.