The empire calls Elowen Vale a Thornwitch, a border rebel, a dangerous woman best handled with shackles. She has survived every label they have given her. She does not intend to stop.

Then she is seized and forced into the Crown Rite alongside Prince Caelan Draven - and the bond activates for the first time in four centuries.

Now every emotion she hides, he feels. Every fear he carries, she knows. The ancient magic does not care that they are enemies. It does not care that her people have been dying under imperial law for generations. It does not care that trusting a prince is the most dangerous thing a border woman can do.

Caelan has his own problem. His Chancellor is corrupt, the ward network is being weaponized, and the only way to stop the man who made him into a prince is to break the system he was raised to protect. The bond between him and Elowen might be the key. It might also be the thing that ends them both.

Enemies. Allies. Something neither of them has words for yet.

The Crown does not care what they call it. It only cares that they choose.

Thorn threaded through steel. Neither one alone.