Her blood burned white. His family buried the reason.
Every ten years, the valley bleeds.
Every ten years, the smoke rises red.
Until hers.
Fern Grovekeeper has spent twenty years being no one—the Keeper’s daughter, raised in the lowest caste of a sealed valley where blood is currency and the Blackwells own the mountain that collects it.
Then the Thirteenth Count burns her blood white.
Fern is taken from her family and brought to Blackwell Keep, where her old life is stripped away piece by piece. Her name. Her place in the valley. The future she thought she understood.
Then there’s Cassius Blackwell.
Heir to the family that has ruled Thornvale for generations, Cassius is supposed to teach Fern how to survive among the High. He’s controlled, difficult to read, and far more interested in her strange blood than Fern would like.
Unfortunately, she’s becoming interested in him too.
But something is wrong beneath Blackwell Keep. The more Fern learns about the Count, the less she believes the history she was raised on. Someone went to great lengths to bury the truth, and Cassius knows more than he’s willing to tell her.
Fern has spent her whole life being told where she belongs.
Now she’s starting to wonder who decided that in the first place.
