Books like Stalking Darkness (Nightrunner, Vol. 2) by Lynn Flewelling

Gavin Guile, the powerful Prism who governs as high priest and emperor, must complete five impossible goals in five years while concealing a son’s existence that threatens the fragile peace of his world.

After a daring victory, heroes Seregil and Alec are captured, sold into slavery, and forced into a perilous alchemical ordeal that threatens to reveal a powerful destiny hidden in Alec’s blood.

They are each other's fiercest love, greatest danger, and only hope. Séverin and his team members might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but victory came at a terrible cost -- one that still haunts all of them. Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long lost artifact rumoured to grant its possessor the power of God. Their hunt lures them far from Paris, and into the icy heart of Russia where crystalline ice animals stalk forgotten mansions, broken goddesses carry deadly secrets, and a string of unsolved murders makes the crew question whether an ancient myth is a myth after all. As hidden secrets come to the light and the ghosts of the past catch up to them, the crew will discover new dimensions of themselves. But what they find out may lead them down paths they never imagined. A tale of love and betrayal as the crew risks their lives for one last job.

Seregil, a thief, con‑artist, and spy, takes on an apprentice amid a world of intrigue, magic, and politics waged by the queen’s ancient foe, Plenimar.

A struggling horror writer reconnects with her past and the ghostly secrets of an old Victorian house in Maine, while navigating a complex love life and unexpected twin ties.