Nowshin the Dagger is a dark, incisive prequel to the Arya Venn series.

Before reputations are built and systems begin to fracture, Mayisha Nowshin learns how power actually works. Brilliant, controlled, and quietly dangerous, she moves through institutions that reward obedience and punish clarity—discovering that survival, when sharpened long enough, becomes method.

This is not a story of innocence lost or morality redeemed. It is the calibration of a mind: how violence becomes procedural, how control becomes language, and how affection, loyalty, and corruption blur without warning. Through dark humor and unsettling precision, Nowshin the Dagger recontextualizes the world of Arya Venn, revealing truths that permanently alter how the main series is read.

You do not need this book to follow Arya Venn—
but once you read it, you will never read that story the same way again.