A taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

Enemies to lovers gay fantasy with politics and sword fights? Yes please. I don't know why no one told me about this book before. Kadou and Evemer are incredible. This book is just delicious. High stakes but Rowland never takes it too far. Genuine slow burn romance and incredible world building. Clever, sexy and different.

From the back

One false coin could topple an empire.

Kadou, the shy prince of Arasht, has no intention of wrestling for imperial control with his sister, the queen. Yet he remains at odds with one of the most powerful ambassadors at court – the father of the queen’s new child. Then a hunting party goes terribly awry, and Kadou finds himself under suspicion of attempted murder.

To prove his loyalty to his sister and salvage his reputation, Kadou takes responsibility for the investigation of a break-in at one of their guilds. He enlists the help of his newly appointed bodyguard, the coldly handsome Evemer, who seems to tolerate him at best. But what appears to be a straightforward crime spirals into a complex counterfeiting operation, with a powerful enemy at its heart.

In Arasht, where princes can touch-taste precious metals with their fingers and myth runs side by side with history, counterfeiting is heresy. The conspiracy they discover could cripple the kingdom’s financial standing – and bring about its ruin.