A prince. Seven killers. A fairy tale hidden in a woman's skin.
Enzo Nalbaveli sails toward a fortress where the dead still walk their patrols in the armor they died in, hunting a jewel buried seventeen centuries ago by the one Templar who trusted a bedtime story to carry the key. The map is Lyralei's tattoo. The plan is the fairy tale she was told every night as a child. The fortress is her home, and it is full of the enemy.
A spymaster walks into a kingdom the swamp built. Casey Connelly needs an alliance that doesn't want to exist, in a place where the land has teeth, the politics run through the water, and a new poison is flooding every city on the continent.
An archmage wears a forgotten god's power where his hand used to be. And he still can't protect the people sleeping under his roof. Something ancient stirs beneath his University, guided by a man who has been hiding poison in his footnotes for fifteen years. Power won't stop the thing being summoned in the tunnels below.
The fairy tale offers three endings. The brave one gets you killed. The patient one keeps you waiting forever. The clever one lets the princess save herself.
Three crowns. Three factions. One broken god. And nobody holds enough pieces to win.
"A powerful and accurate reflection of the complexities of addiction and recovery."
- ohn Campbell, LCSW, LCDC, LSAT, Therapist and Person in Long-Term Recovery
