>>689547kind of glad i was able to give off that sort of feeling even though my execution could have been better. the title is the silver devil by teresa denys, i've read it over 3 or so times now and it never really gets old. here's the cover art for it - the second edition cover also gets the design of the hero wrong but in this case his coloring is much more darker than it should be (often described as pale angel with pure radiance or whatever) and his overall look seems too old as he's only supposed to be in his mid thirties iirc.
the story itself is fairly gloomy, the paragraph it starts with a wonderfully descriptive opening of:
It had been as hot as this the summer it began. All Fidena stank. The fetid smell from the bay, where ships lay beached and their cargoes rotted for want of men to unload them, mingled with human sweat and filth in the dust-laden air. Flies and maggots bred, and the wind was sickly with the expectation of plague. Men lay down in the streets and died, and their neighbors would not touch the bodies, not even to drag them out of the all-consuming sun.
if you're interested in reading it you can easily find the epub online. in any case please don't read the prologue or epilogue as they were likely inserted in haste and make no sense regarding the final few chapters
