The Tranquil Lantern by Nina Carver

Sophie’s life hasn’t turned out quite the way she wanted. Twenty-five years old and stuck in a boring job as a tanner’s apprentice – and with a horrible boss, to boot – she’s just about at her wits’ end. Where are the dragons to slay, the fae to outwit? There’s not a shred of excitement to be found in her hometown hamlet of Pilora.

Something has to change. And while the world can be a dangerous place for a novice adventurer, Sophie knows just the spot to cut her teeth.
Scarcely a day’s hike from her village lies the long-abandoned necropolis of the sorcerer Jazz Katan, former conqueror of the Midlands. But when Sophie tries to kickstart her new life, things prove more complicated than she ever could have imagined. Someone else is headed to the necropolis, someone on a very different kind of mission, and Sophie’s practice quest is about to get a whole lot more dangerous.

To have any chance of escaping the necropolis alive, Sophie will have to put her faith in the secretive, brooding, and devilishly handsome dark elf Filoro – and pray that his mysterious past doesn’t prove to be both of their undoings.