Hexborn. Abomination. Unclean. Young Shiloh knows exactly what she is. She just refuses to let that stop her. Her illness might make her an outcast, but her broken body hides great magical power. And she intends to make the most of it. Silas, the king’s ruthless fixer, seeks to use that power to preserve the uneasy peace the kingdom has enjoyed since the end of the Siblings’ War. Silas hauls Shiloh from her mountain village to the wizard academy at the king’s court, where magic and political intrigue conspire to create danger around every corner. Can this child of war save the peace? Or will old sins rise to threaten Shiloh, Silas, and the kingdom of Bryn?

Shiloh and Silas are in real trouble, and only Shiloh can save them. Queen Esta has not forgotten Silas’s role in her mother’s ouster, nor is she sanguine about Shiloh’s possible claim to her throne. The new queen is out for blood, and her allies in the church begin a purge as brutal as it is efficient. Soon, Silas sits alone in the Dark Tower while Shiloh labors under the cruel eye of the most powerful priest in the realm, a man with dark ambitions of his own. Not content to wait for help that might never come, Shiloh is determined to save herself, Silas, and the innocents who surround her. New friends help her to form a daring and dangerous plan as Silas works desperately to wield influence at court from inside his prison cell. Can Shiloh harness her magic in a new way to rescue herself, her husband, and the people of Bryn? Can she face a future that is not the one she would have chosen? And will Silas still be by her side?