The first installment of an epic fantasy trilogy for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Claire Legrand.

Meraki Vargea is the carefree prince heir of Clan Vargea. When a Great War ravages the clans of the Hygsten Range, alliances crumble, empires rise on their borders, and Meraki is thrust into her role as prince heir that she was never expected to fill before. In the midst of widespread chaos, as well as the emergence of a dangerous secret involving the dark magic that got her own mother killed, she has to decide if the sacrifice of her morals and her friendships are worth the protection of the life she thought she knew.

But that decision is ripped from her regardless, and the prince is torn between two lives: one as savior of her clan, and the other as a disgraced outcast, bound in servitude to a lesser god as punishment for her sins committed during the war. After ten years of living as an outcast, war returns on their borders, and those lives, past and present, become hopelessly entangled.

The life she thought she left behind. The father she left behind. The shoes of leadership she never thought she could fill-was afraid to fill. Can she truly come back to it? Even if it means facing the ghosts of those she once loved? The ghosts she betrayed, and was betrayed by in return?

What she chooses has the power to shake even the gods above and below, watching her every move.

One stumble, and the world will burn.