Lerato Sibanda | Official Author Portfolio

The Literary Forge

Debut Novel • Out Now

The Crimson Crown

A dark fantasy of systemic blood magic, imperial secrets, and devastating sacrifices. In the frozen, oppressive heart of the empire, King Valerius stays ageless by cannibalizing his own people, drawing raw life force from the bloodlines of the High Wardens. For ten years, the court has dismissed Vespera as "The Unripe"—a useless gardener sitting on a shelf, waiting for her magical "bloom" to ripen so the tyrant can drain her completely dry.

But her magic was never meant to grow flowers. Born from trauma and forged in sheer survival, Vespera's power erupts inward, calcifying her marrow into jagged, ivory shards of bone weapons. While she plays the role of a submissive, fragile doll encased in a structural glass dress, she is secretly tracing a path to the throne. Beside her stands Elowen, the unyielding Prince who acts as the King's cruel enforcer. Yet behind his cold facade lies a shattering secret: he has spent a decade slowly dying, tying his own cardiac rhythm to an illegal pocket dimension to keep Vespera’s frozen family alive.

Official Soundtrack

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Currently in the Workshop

Untitled Serpent King Project

A pure, malicious enemies-to-lovers dark circus fantasy with absolutely no excuses. To the thousands of mortal livestock who pay in blood-gems to pass through the neon gates, she is the Carnival Queen—an untouchable institution of engineered terror and stolen joy. She rules her empire with a silver-tipped riding crop and a heart of absolute malice, harvesting the literal laughter of children to power her hypnotic calliope music.

When she locks the ancient, majestic Serpent King behind the enchanted glass of the central rotunda, his liquid-gold eyes match her venom with an unyielding defiance. Out of pure spite, she weaves a catastrophic soul-rot curse to watch him crawl to her boots and beg for the antidote. But as his golden blood goes slack against the iron floorboards, she realizes a terrifying reality: her limitless power means absolutely nothing without his defiance to match it. When a rival showman breaches the perimeter wards to claim the fading king's carcass, a possessive madness consumes her, forcing her to commit her very first selfless act—destroying her own immortal core just to keep her greatest enemy breathing.

Drafting Progress (Book Two Manuscript) Prologue & Chapter One Drafted

Character Dossiers

Vespera

The Unripe / Queen of Thorns

A diplomat's daughter forced to become a ritual object. Shrouded in white porcelain powder and sewn directly into a heavy glass dress, her magic bypasses biology. She materializes dense ivory spikes directly from her hands and chest, turning her pain into armor and her rage into cold spears.

Elowen

The Ice Prince / The Architect

The calculating, brilliant High Commander of the Vanguard. He wears a cold mask of tyranny in the public court, yet operates as a secret donor in the dark. He limits his own formidable ice magic because half his life force is constantly draining to sustain a pocket dimension hiding Vespera's mother and sister.

Liam

The Radicalized Sentinel

A guard of House Solis. He represents traditional heroism and clean lines, but his protective instincts turn toxic through fierce, blinding jealousy. Manipulated by King Valerius's clever lies, he radicalizes his loyalty, ultimately betraying Vespera to the crown under the delusion that he is saving her.

Cartography of the Realm

Trace the grueling route of the Valorian Vanguard from the oppressive southern capital to the northern borders of Osteon.

1. The Ebon Spire

The polished black marble and obsidian capital. A vertical fortress built directly over deep subterranean laboratories and furnace networks where the life force of outcasts is processed like fuel.

2. The White Woods

A dangerous, freezing territory of ancient hundred-foot pines. Known simply as "The Gap," this wind-scoured wilderness is a brutal choke point filled with ravines, outcasts, and sudden tactical ambushes.

3. The Iron Pass

A massive, ten-story fortress wall carved seamlessly into a jagged mountain range. The physical border between Valoria and Osteon, recently slaughtered and melted down by pure Void acid.

About the Author

Lerato Sibanda is a dark fantasy author currently residing in the United Kingdom. At eighteen years of age, she finished her debut novel while completing her BTEC qualifications in Business and IT, proving that the business of storytelling is just as systematic as the art of it.

Deeply fascinated by multi-layered magic systems, complex political intrigue, and grey anti-heroes, Lerato writes stories where love is a sharp, sacrificial edge and survival comes at a biological cost. When she isn't drafting grimdark manuscripts on her phone or capturing moody, atmospheric aesthetics with her Nikon D3000 camera, she can be found brainstorming acting monologues, dreaming of remote mansions surrounded by nature, or learning how to whistle like a proper gardener.